Last night in Sydney!

Well, Sydney was everything we could have asked for! Fun things to do, great food, perfect weather and absolutely fantastic people. We spent our last afternoon at Sydney Wildlife World and the Sydney Tower (like the Needle in Seattle). Pet Koalas, saw more wombats (my new favorite Australian animal), took in a panoramic view of the city from nearly 1000 feet up! Saw the 2000 Olympic Stadium, Bondi beach and of course the Opera House and Bridge...I think we've taken at least 5 GB of pictures of those two alone! We also sat in the park and watched the old school chess players knock out a few games on a giant board about 20 feet square with huge pieces 5-gallon buckets. Amelie put a hat out and sang for passers-by, trying to make a little pocket-change! Classic. We moseyed through the city and eventually wound up back at Darling Harbour, slightly before dinner time at a huge playground. Played there for an hour, until I (Rob) made my bout for worst-parent-of-the-year by allowing Pieter to fall into a shockingly deep fountain...he went in over his head, but came up swimming...fortunately all of that training at the hotel pool paid off. I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him out before he got too far downstream, and into the "rapids". Needless to say, Leen was not pleased, and seriously contemplated pushing ME in.

Dinner was exceptional at "Adria" on Darling Harbour....I had a Scotch Fillet with mushroom sauce and Leen had herb-encrusted red snapper. Kids inhaled steak and chips, which I was not permitted to touch, even though it came way sooner than ours...

Finished the night off by meeting up with a couple of NUWC guys and a couple of guys from the torpedo shop in Yorktown, along with their wives, for a nice glass of wine and a chat about their last 3 weeks in Perth, working on torpedoes.

Packing and the trip over were classic...more about that in the next post.