Day 3: More Than an Opera House, part 2

Today we went to the botanical gardens, to Manly, and to the Rocks.

The Royal Botanical Gardens are HUGE!  Even in winter, they have tons of tropical plants.  When I go to gardens, I like to play a little game where I name the plant, then check the sign to see if I'm right.  Wow--I didn't know so many of these!  We only saw a small amount of the gardens.  One interesting place was the Calyx.  It was designed for the 200th anniversary of the gardens.  They have a wall display with 18,000 pots of plants.  Beautiful!

These are their gardens in winter--what does summer look like?

Beautiful tree!

The outside of the Calyx

This super cool microscope is in the Calyx--I want this for my classroom!

Sausage tree

bamboo

Joshua in the tree!

Unusual rock formation

After this, we got subway at the wharf and ate this while waiting for the next ferry to Manly which is a small town across the harbor from Sydney.  While we were eating, a tiny little boy fell down face-first and started crying.  Several people looked at him, then looked around to see who was with him, but no one went over to him.  So I did.  I went over and had him stand up, then picked him up while I looked for a parent or other adult.  No one was there, so I was looking for a police officer while trying to get the little boy to stop crying.  He let me hold him, but didn't cling to me.  Suddenly a woman ran toward me with a stroller and another, slightly older, boy in tow.  I asked if he was hers and handed him over.  She was frantic, holding him and crying.  They left, so I went over to our bench and continued eating my lunch.  She came back and thanked me, asking where we found him.  He had slipped out of the stroller and run off and she didn't see where he went.  How terrifying for both of them!

Opera house from the ferry

Harbor bridge from the ferry

Then on to Manly.  It is a cute little town across the harbor and several bays away.  The "main street" of Manly is the Corso.  It is primarily a pedestrian only street of businesses that leads straight from the ferry terminal to the beaches along the ocean.  All along the Corso, we saw people carrying surf boards, several in wet suits due to the cold water.  The beach was nice sand with concrete steps for people to sit on.  Out in the larger waves, surfers were trying their luck.  Joshua rolled his pants up and I loved seeing him so happy wading into the water!  I rolled my pants up, but only let the water wash over my feet--brrrr!

The Corso

The Corso

While waiting in Manly for our ferry back, Kathi treated all of us to gelato.  I had raspberry and cookies and cream--both were very good.  After we returned, we walked to the Rocks--the old part of Sydney and walked around.  We found one street with an Irish hotel/bar and another shop with an Irish saying above the door, so it may have been the Irish area of town.  I think I noticed that the Irish pub and hotel had been open since 1918.

the Harbor Bridge from the Rocks

The underside of the Harbor Bridge

After that, we got dinner and found another bench to eat at while the seagulls again bothered us for food.   Then we decided to go back to the hotel since it was getting dark.  We only noticed that it was only 6:00 when we returned!  Quiet time on computers and phones (and writing this blog) before an early bed time.  Tomorrow we head to Canberra!