The Chinese Garden, with the city of Sydney in the background.
One of the best things in Sydney was sitting and resting by the pond at the Chinese Gardens.
A window looking out at the garden.
Granted, it’s a little odd to look at a serene garden and see skyscrapers in the background.
A window in the tea house within the garden.
However, as long as you keep your eyes down and in the garden, it is really relaxing.
Look out from the tea house at the pond and the viewing area across the water.
I particularly liked all the animals. None of them are in cages or technically considered part of the garden. They just visit and/or live there by choice.
An iguana in the Chinese Garden.
I saw iguanas, birds (including the much hated White Ibis,) turtles, and ducks.
A duck and a turtle in the pond.
Of course they do keep koi there, which is awesome.
Koi in the pond.
Anyway, it’s a peaceful place and there are lots of benches. I brought a book and some water, and i just hung out for awhile.
A viewing pavilion by the waterfall.
If you need a break, and you are tired of the hustle and bustle of being a tourist; this is the spot to visit.
Of all the things I saw and did in Australia, the two best things were the Great Barrier Reef and the Butterfly Garden.
Cairns Birdwing butterfly on a
My YouTube Channel has the best of the Great Barrier Reef stuff, because video comes out better than pictures in water full of sediment.
Butterflies feeding at a sugar-water feeder.
However, the pictures from the butterfly garden are better than the video, so I wanted to do an entire post just to show off the butterfly pictures.
Overview of the garden.
The butterfly garden in Kuranda has a building full of caterpillars, so you can see what the juvenile butterflies look like.
Two Chocolate Argus butterflies getting friendly.
The main building is the garden, which is full of all kinds of amazing flowers and water features.
Common Eggfly on a leaf.
Now, I know butterflies are not everyone’s thing. I am sure most people would have been more excited by the markets and the shopping opportunities.
Cruiser butterfly on a leaf.
However, I like watching butterflies. You can just sit down and watch them flutter around. If you hold very still, one might even land on you.
Blue Banded Eggfly on a leaf.
When I traveled with the Renaissance Festival (way back in my early twenties) there was a butterfly garden at one of the fairs in Texas. I used to love to sit in there and watch the butterflies.
Case of butterflies in the gift shop.
If I ever have a back yard again, I hope to fill it with flowers so I can attract butterflies to my yard. Of course, I won’t catch them and pin them under glass like the gift shop, because that is horrifying.
Monarch butterfly display between the garden and the gift shop.
I took a tour of the blue mountains through a company called Barefoot Down under. I chose them specifically because the flier claimed that only a “moderate” level of fitness was required (while other tours said the hiking was “hard” or “difficult.”)
As a cancer survivor with a heart condition, I struggle. I mean, I am not unfit. I run three times a week at the gym and I swim nearly every day. I can and have hiked all day. In fact, just last year I did the 888 stairs to the top of Ulsan-Bawi in Seoraksan.
Stairs that the tour operator thought we should run up. Not walk, mind you. Run like a mountain lion was chasing us.
That said, I can’t go at break-neck speeds. I can’t run up and down trails. I do need to hike slowly. And that is why I chose the tour group that said the difficulty was only moderate.
Unfortunately, the tour group leader decided that running was the only way to hike.
Honestly, it would have been fine if we got to Wenworth Falls recreation area, and then he pointed out the easy trail to me to get to the falls. It was short, and I saw children and old people on it. After all, I had disclosed that I had a heart condition, and if he was planning on running wildly down the trails, then he should have let me do my own thing and given me a time to meet back up with the group.
However, he didn’t.
Just sat by myself in the woods. All alone. Waiting for over an hour.
He took me into the jungle and then told me the path he was taking to the falls would be “too hard for me” and to “just sit at the trail fork.” I sat. And sat. And sat. He never came back for me and the group did not return. I ended up deciding to hike back out on my own, and I sure am lucky I did! The tour guide had decided to take everyone out going a different way, and I would have missed them all and got left in the forest by myself.
To add insult to injury, he had his wife e-mail me to say “You have wondered off. Please return to the tour or you will be left behind.” When I got back to the city and had wifi, I checked it and when I saw that i was livid. He told me to stay behind, and then planned to say I wandered off and it was my own fault.
Luckily, I decided to hike out on my own.
Upper pathway, which is nicer than the lower trails.
However, I couldn’t very well yell at him in front of everyone when I re-joined the group (and boy did he look surprised to see me.) After all, one of the other girls on the tour told me that he had pretended to try to come and find me (which I know he didn’t, because I did not move.) Ergo, he played it up for them so that he could make sure it looked like my fault.
I took the high road and tried to act cheerful for the rest of the day. We went to a restaurant with overpriced kangaroo burgers, a street full of graffiti, and an overlook to take pictures. However, the whole time I was thinking about how the guide had tried to leave me in the woods because I confessed to having a heart condition and he wanted to run all day.
Kangaroo Burger. Not really very good, but I had to try.
The thing that gets me is this: He could have just said “This hike is rated difficult” on the flier. If he had done so, I never would have gone on the tour. I wouldn’t have paid a bunch of money to see Wentworth Falls (which I never got to see.) I would have looked for another tour, or taken a bus up to the park and hiked at my own pace like my friends did when they went to the Blue Mountains.
So basically, the tour flier is misleading. It is not “moderate” in difficulty. It is “hard.” That is something they should change immediately. I have no idea how Wenworth Falls looks, and I spent about an hour in the woods reading my book instead of finding out because the tour guide told me that I was “breathing too hard” as he was literally running up a hill and I tried to follow, and so he told me that I should “wait here until the group returns.” I was pretty disappointed.
On the upside, we did come across Chris Darwin (the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin) completely by chance. So, I got to meet him. At least that was something.
One of the only good pictures I got, from an overlook we drove to.
As you know, I recently visited Australia. I already posted pictures of my snorkel adventures on the Great Barrier Reef, but I also snorkeled in Clovelly Bay, Sydney.
Blue Grouper
It was freezing cold (to someone who lives on Guam) but I saw my first groupers outside of an aquarium, and that was magical.
Green Grouper
I highly recommend that anyone who wants to follow in my footsteps and snorkel any of the Sydney stops from Manly Beach to Clovelly Bay to get a wet suit. I should have, but it was the middle of the summer in Australia and I thought it would be really hot.
Cool plant life.
Turns out, that is not how Australia works. Water coming up from South America is cold year round. Now I know.
Little Grey Fish
At any rate, it was my first time snorkeling or diving outside a tropical environment since childhood. Instead of coral, there are plants and something that looks an awful lot like moss.
Sea Floor
That was quite different. Most of the fish were less colorful, which I expected. However, some were surprising colorful for living in cold water.
Sea Snail
I hadn’t snorkeled in a cold environment since my trip to Catalina Bay in Middle School. I remember the huge kelp forests, and how the little orange Garibaldi fish and bright purple star fish really stuck out in the sea of greens. This felt very similar to that.
I should probably do my Australia posts in the order that they happened. And yet, I am too excited about my underwater pictures from the trip to even start looking through the above-water stuff.
The Reef actually has more bleaching than Guam. If I had to guess, I would say that the shallower water must be the reason (shallow water heats up faster.) Guam is next to the Marianas Trench, so I imagine the overall water temperature in our region might be colder, even though we are on the equator.
Giant Clam
You might think it is the types of coral, but it’s definitely not. Nearly all the corals I saw on the Great Barrier Reef were the same as the corals in Guam. There were only a few differences.
Turtle
Some of the fish I saw on the reef were bigger, which I would guess is because I was snorkeling in deeper water there than what I usually would (since I get better pictures in shallow water.)
Jellyfish
There were some huge parrot fish, as well as some large cod and sea bass. I saw a few sharks as well. In Guam I usually see black-tipped reef sharks, but on the reef I saw white-tipped reef sharks. So, that was new.
Rainbow Parrot Fish
It was jellyfish season, and I definitely didn’t know that when I booked the trip! We had to wear stinger suits the whole time.
Angel Fish and Giant Clam
I have actually never seen so many jellyfish in one place. However, the stinger suits protected us, and no one got stung except the guy who took his hood off.
Christmas Tree Worms in Coral.
My YouTube Channel has lots of footage of the Reef and all the cool things we saw. I definitely recommend taking a look, if you like the under water world.
Corals
The tour guides told me that the best time to see the reef is in August. That is the middle of winter in the southern hemisphere, so I would have thought it would be stormy then.
Love the blue stag coral
However, they say the summer is far more stormy, and the good visibility is definitely in August.
Reef Squid
So if you go to The Great Barrier Reef, I can recommend Carins Dive Center (who I went through) and their boat The Kangaroo Explorer (which I did the live abroad package on for three days and two nights.) But I can’t recommend going in January, because it was stormy and it was also jellyfish season.
Note: Click the links in this post to see the videos on my YouTube Channel.
First, I am back home in Guam. We will be here until around August or September. Then we move to Oahu.
Now then:
I recently went on an Australian adventure. I will do a few detailed posts about the things I saw and did, but here is an overview of where I went.
First, I went to Bondi Beach and stayed in a hostel there. I did the coastal walk and snorkeled in Clovelly Bay with a woman from my Snorkel Travel Friends group. I explored the shops and sat and talked with people, and I had a great time.
Later, I moved to a hostel near central station in Sydney. I took the Big Bus Tour and got off to see all the major attractions like the Opera House and some of the old Cathedrals. Then I went on a Blue Mountains tour and met up with my friend Shari from Melbourne.
Finally, I met my friend Melissa and took a flight to Cairns. We went out to the Great Barrier Reef and snorkeled at several spots while living abroad a ship called The Kangaroo Explorer. After that, we went up to the town of Kurunda to see the rain forest.
My very last day was spent in Sydney watching the fireworks for Australia Day. Finally, I flew to Hawaii and then home to Guam.
Right now I am catching up on my sleep and sorting through photos, but soon I will share some of the better shots of the reef, and of my other adventures.
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