One of our favorite activities in Sydney was a visit to the Parliament of New South Wales. Colman’s new-ish job is as the Chief of Staff for the NSW Minister for Mental Health, and so he was able to have us invited to listen to question time from the public gallery. We had heard that we needed to be quiet in the gallery or else the speaker could ask us to leave, but  we were definitely the quiet ones and the elected officials had to be reprimanded by the Speaker, in some cases being asked to leave. For US readers,…

Colette took the day off Thursday, our first full day in Sydney, and took us on a tour of the CBD (Central Business District, aka downtown) and parts beyond, including The Rocks, Darling Harbour, and Chinatown. We joked about this being her second time giving me a tour of a city, the first time was when she was less than Miles’s age! First, we acted like locals by stopping for coffee in a trusted coffee place. Sydney is obsessed, in a very good way, with coffee. We experimented with some Sydney style coffee before settling on our favorites, a long…

We had two delicious meals at Whet restaurant in Cape Trib. Definitely recommend it if you’re in the area!  

We hiked up Mount Sorrow, which was really tough! Of all the whiney names Captain Cook gave points in the Cape, this one didn’t seem too far off. We did see some excellent examples of strangling vine trees though, and John and Liam reported that the view from the top was mighty nice.

We took a lot of walks along Myall Beach, just about 50 meters (that’s right, we braved the world’s most poisonous snake population, crocodiles AND the metric system while in Australia!) from our campsite. Liam enjoyed a kangaroo burger and Bundaberg Ginger Beer (aka ginger ale) one afternoon.

The Exotic Fruit Farm is a great place to visit. The couple who runs it set out to grow fruit from all over the world that would grow in this climate. We learned loads about fruit growing, including facts like mangos won’t grow in the rainforest because it’s too wet, macadamia nuts are the only commercially viable fruit export that Australia has, you have to be very tough to run a fruit farm (one of the owners cut her foot on a bamboo trunk that morning, hopped around to prepare for the afternoon visit, then once we arrived drove herself…

Lots of amazing trees for climbing and zipline-ing on in the Daintree rainforest! One of our first adventures in the Daintree area was a zipline tour of the forest.  

We weren’t able to blog while on the road, so I’ll post some photos from our trip to Australia now that we’re back. We flew from Chicago – Dallas – Brisbane – Cairns, spent the night in Cairns, then drove up north of the Daintree River to Cape Tribulation. Colette and Colman recommended this area to us, and we are really glad we were able to go. The Cape is off the grid, but it didn’t feel like we were roughing it at all because the restaurants and all up there use a combination of sustainable energy and generators to…

Today we went to hear 4 authors of young adult fiction speak in a panel at the Printer’s Row Lit Fest. Veronica Roth (picture above with Miles) was the main draw, since Miles and I have both read her two books “Divergent” and “Insurgent”, fiction set in a future post-apocalyptic Chicago. In the book the el neither stops not has doors, and the brave people in the new society run and throw themselves into the cars! (and off when they get to their destination!) And the lake is dried up :(. Anyway the talk was interesting and it was also…