We are home! Amazingly we had no delays on any of our flights yesterday. We left Sydney at 12:35 p.m. Saturday Jan. 22 and got to Los Angeles at 7:00 a.m. Saturday Jan. 22. We had two Saturday mornings! The flight to LA was about an hour and a half shorter than flying out due to tailwinds. I was grateful for that!
Both Thursday and Friday were free days for the group. We really had nothing planned. Thursday was our last day in Melbourne and everyone wanted to go back to the Victoria Market to do more shopping. One of our girls bought 6 pairs of Uggs to bring home and she managed to get them all packed away. Later in the day, a couple of the students went back to the Australian Open and the rest of us went to Cook's Cottage. It was the cottage of James Cook who was the father of Captain James Cook, the explorer. Someone bought the cottage and had it shipped from England to Australia to celebrate the centennial of Melbourne in 1934. Captain Cook died in his forties, but his wife, Elizabeth, lived to be 91. She outlived her husband and all six of their children. It was very interesting.
We packed up and took an overnight train back to Sydney. I was on the lookout for kangaroos since we were traveling at dusk, but I didn't see any. We had seen lots of wallabies on our bus tour earlier in the week, but no kangaroos. It was another night of little sleep.
On our last day in Sydney everyone wanted to go back to Bondi Beach, so we all slathered ourselves with sunscreen and caught the bus to the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day with hundreds of people enjoying the sand and surf. The lifeguards had a busy day. I was only there for about 2 hours and saw 3 rescues! There was an area that had a strong undercurrent that people kept getting caught in. Some of us left the beach early so we wouldn't get sunburnt. The others stayed, but only a couple were burnt.
Friday night we went to see the show "Soap" at the Sydney Opera House. We were all excited about seeing a show in this famous landmark. The SOH is a happening place on a Friday night. I think there were 3 or 4 shows in different theaters at the opera house. We really enjoyed Soap. It was full of music, juggling and acrobatics. It was the perfect way to end our visit to Australia!
There are still 2 days that I haven't written about. One was the trip to see the little penguins on Phillip Island and the other day was our bus trip on the Great Ocean Road. Both of these days were incredible. We saw so many awe inspiring sights that we were almost on overload! My fifth grade students will hear about these days in great detail. I may post one more time to share some of these sights.
If you ever have the opportunity to travel to Australia, I would highly recommend it. You know it almost doesn't matter where you go you meet wonderful people, see amazing things, and learn so much about other cultures and yourself. Travel certainly enriches life!
No comments:
Post a Comment