Ridin'Ard (The h is silent)

For our last day we started out with the beach walk, but abandoned it pretty soon. It was so crowded and frustrating with people randomly stopping to take pictures that we were like, let's go back to our room and read. This was the best part when we branched off and stood on some rocks getting a little splish splash. Believe it or not, I took like 50+ pictures and am including several to give a sense of the moment. You're welcome.  After naps, we realized that our show at the Sydney Opera, Sunset Boulevard, was 2 hrs and 40 minutes and started packing to save ourselves time after.  Psst: you can rent this shuttle for hen parties.  It was a good thing we gave ourselves an hour to get there and get situated, because that place is a maze! Waaaayyy bigger than the Kennedy Center.  We had a themed curated dinner before the show. Dinner cost more than our performance tickets.  Tuna tartare:  And braised beef cheeks: There was no ceiling on the elevator!  And...

We slept in before heading out to the Blue Mountains.  As we got closer, Jaron rolled his windows down. The cicadas were super loud! This is the max I registered, but it was generally in the 80s. Jaron got a video of what it sounded like.  First we did the walk to the Three Sisters.  The path kept going so we followed it down several flights of stairs until we realized that we were literally on the Grand Staircase. That's not what we signed up for so we bailed out.  Next we drove to the trailhead for Pool of Siloam hike. It was exactly what I had in mind. In the forest, shaded, super pretty. It had a ton of stone steps, people obviously put a lot of effort in to creating and maintaining the trail.  This ended up being a mini-pool. Come on, it met the description - waterfall, pool, along the trail.  We kept going and then found The Real Deal.  On our way home we took a pit stop at a McD's and this car was parked next to us. Guess they don't take many pa...

Alright, time to go to the correct zoo.  But wait! We had to spend at least 30 min figuring out how to open the charging port and paying for EV charging at the zoo. There are 3 ways to open the charging port, but none of them will work until magically, one does. Julie started using the stopwatch on her phone to clock time wasted fighting with the car in order to feel some measure of control over the situation.  We go in to the zoo and start in the Australian section. The Aussie animals are just so fucking cute. Here is an emu and a (I think) a wombat.  This kangaroo is lying in Burt Reynolds repose.  Koalas! Omg they are ADORABLE! I mean, what's he doing all the way up there??  Looooook so cute!!  Not pictured: the Tasmanian Devil, bc he was running around too fast!  This is an electric fence and reminded us of Jurassic park.  We figured we'd go ahead and see some normal zoo animals while we were there.  We watched the chimpanzees for a littl...

We slept late after staying up late after a late arrival. We had coffee bags in the room, but Julie has gotten spoiled and needed real coffee (a large flat white). Jaron spent some quality time with the car owner's manual to figure out how to turn off all of the noises. I definitely would have gotten in to a crash with how many noises it was making plus driving on the wrong side of the road.  We spent the morning getting oriented and looking at the weather and decided to go to the zoo. It was in a different area than Julie remembered, about 45 min away. We got Chinese for a late lunch on the way. After lunch we got in the car and realized that the car clock was an hour late, just like our last one and that there wasn't time for the zoo. (This car has forced software updates, so why TF the time is wrong I'll never know.) It turns out it was the wrong zoo and that Julie's not crazy. Tho it is Taylor Swift's favorite zoo.  https://www.smh.com.au/culture/music/we-inves...