The (American) Eagle Has Landed

Day 3 - Monday, Dec 22 – Arrival, Salesforce, The Zoo

Everything worked like clockwork when we landed at 7:30am. The kids were great getting through customs and biosecurity (AU is VERY cautious about invasive species entering the country). Our driver met us and we got to our hotel with some educational information about AU from our driver along the way. 

Our hotel is in the heart of Sydney Harbor area – right near Circular Quay, the hub of activity on the famous Sydney Harbor. Our hotels rooms were not ready, but we did a quick change into summer gear (it was mid-70s F) left our bags. The concierge took us to the pool on the 23^rd floor, which was also where one of our rooms was, and showed us the view. It was utterly amazing. 

Our first stop was a very convenient one. Barry works for Salesforce, and their Sydney office was just outside the back door of our hotel. Now, Salesforce is widely recognized for its family friendly culture and work-life balance focus. We went to the lobby of the 50-story building, and Barry merely showed his badge and the whole family got guest passes to the building. We went to various floors of the building where the company has break rooms and casual working areas. On the top floor is a coffee shop where coffee, tea, hot chocolate are free as well as refrigerated drinks and snack. The view was amazing, and the environment splendid. Some people working, some people socializing, and none of them took any exception to a family with four kids wandering around looking at the views and ordering a hot chocolate (along with their grandpa). 

 

Thereafter, it was a short walk to Circular Quay. We took the ferry from Circular Quay to the Torongo Zoo, which was about a 20-minute ferry ride. We had an excursion/tour planned later in the day and so we spent a little time walking around seeing some of the animals before our excursion. Ruby wanted to see that giraffes, which were really quite spectacular. The zoo is built on a hillside across the harbor from the Circular Quay and Harbor Bridge area, so the views were spectacular looking from the zoo across the harbor. After some wandering around seeing African animals, we went for lunch. After lunch, we joined up with our Tour Guide who did a personal walking tour of the Australian animal areas. Our tour guide, Johnny, was very nice and very informative. We saw lots of animals that are unique to the Australian environment. Of particular interest where the kangaroos and the koala bears. We got to walk into a special exhibit area and get very close, within a foot, of the koala bears. You’re not allowed to touch them. They just sit in their tree branch lazily sleeping 20 out of the 24 hours of a day. We also went to private area where we could see other desert animals and one was the potoroo. They each have names, and the one named Jack was very friendly. He came up to Ruby and Gordon and was allowing them to pet him and feed him as he ran around us. It was very cool.

 

We also got a special opportunity to feed an emu. Johnny got a half a head of lettuce and asked if anyone wanted to feed the emu. It is a big bird with a long neck and a large beak. Ruby was the first to be brave enough to volunteer to stand in front of this enormous bird and hold out the lettuce for it to pick on. She did it. Johnny was very impressed at this little girl was brave enough to hold this lettuce and feed the emu so closely. Each of us took a turn holding an ever-diminishing half-head of lettuce to feed the emu. There were many interesting animals – including the platypi (platypuses?).

After the zoo, we took the ferry back to Circular Quay and made our way back to our hotel. We were very tired as you might expect, having traveled all through the night and immediately getting involved with activities that day. But I’m quite certain it was for the best. It kept us active and acclimated to the local time.

We went down to a restaurant on Circular Quay, overlooking the harbor and the Sydney Opera House. We were very close to being under the Harbor Bridge. We had a wonderful dinner at a steakhouse.

Afterwards, we returned to our hotel room so the kids could change into their bathing suits and check out the hotel pool and hot tub. The pool has a glass wall on it so that the kids looked like they’re swimming in an aquarium. It was very fun, and they were thrilled to be swimming in front of the glass wall. After some time in the hot tub and some relaxation around the pool, we all went back to our rooms and retired for the night, exhausted by our first day of travel. As we got back to our rooms, we marveled that we had only been in Australia for about 12 hours, but it seemed like we had done so much.