ICEBERGS - BONDI BEACH & SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - DAY 6
Like clockwork, we woke up at 6AM, despite going to bed later. No chance of getting more sleep. We eat a light and free breakfast in the hostel, and head out for coffee and WiFi.
We google map and research public transportation, buy their Opal bus cards, and head to Bondi Beach. When we arrive, it’s sunny, hot and beautiful despite Sydney being graced with their first day of Autumn. (It's strange to say this as their seasons are opposite to ours). The waves are harsh, the surfers are out in full swing, and the ocean is a crisp shade of blue. The sand is especially fine, and what strikes me as most bizarre, the sand SQUEAKS from the heat and movement as we walk on it. I don’t know why this intrigues me so much, but I’ve never experienced this before and it fascinates me. I'm literally a kid in a sandbox. Rachel is nice enough to humor me.
We dip our toes in the water, and it’s freezing. Shocked, we see some Aussies taking a swim in the rough currents with no wet suits- these guys are tough. We continue along the strand and hike up to a lookout point. We carry on until we discover the lesser known half of Bondi. I prefer this area- Less tourists, untouched, and even more beautiful. There are more laid out rocks, reef, and even some small trickling waterfalls.
We backtrack for lunch and eat at the famous ICEBERGS per a suggestion from my good friend, Daniel. It’s lovely. We watch the pool fill up, oversee the surfers, and split a meal- Fish and chips.
Fully satisfied with this mini adventure, we take the bus back to see the Opera House. This is round two for me, and a first for Rachel. When we get there, we walk around the park, and all over the downtown area. We see the Sydney Harbor Bridge and decide to opt out of the bridge climb. Not as exciting as we thought, and an overpriced tourist attraction; something that we don’t feel we’re missing out on. Regardless, the sunset is COMPLETELY breathtaking this time. We stay at the Opera house until the sun fully disappears from view.
Next, we have A LOT of time to kill until our guided tour at the Sydney Observatory. Rachel wants to eat at a tourist trap, but I want to save money. I buy a chicken and mushroom meat pie elsewhere, and Rachel eats an overpriced salad at this cooler tourist trap. Randomly mid-meal, a fire alarm goes off, and suddenly we have fire trucks pulling up outside, and firefighters walking through the restaurant between our tables. Dinner and a show.
After this little fiasco, we finish up and walk around for a few hours. Now it’s FREEZING! I had my sweatshirt and beanie, but the wind was relentless and winter wasn’t coming- It arrived!
I take a few long exposure shots of the city until we can’t stand it anymore and head for the Observatory to seek shelter.
We get there and warm up. The Observatory is small, and rather old. It’s the first Sydney Observatory and still standing. An antiquated structure with minimal attractions, I’m not sure what to expect.
We begin our tour, and our guide is EXCELLENT! We kick off in the planetarium and dive head first into a million facts regarding the vastness of space. I was already aware that Space is infinite, but to have numbers and comparisons for scale, just proves once again that it is truly impossible for us to be alone in the Universe. Just in the darkest part of Space where the Hubble Space Telescope captured this image, we zoom in to find countless more galaxies, and quadrillions of stars. Zooming out again into our Milky Way, that little dark patch could be hidden by holding up a grain of sand from Earth. Certainly keeps things in perspective.
The guide also touched on astrology. I already don't believe in zodiac signs, horoscopes or astrology in general. I only know what I am considered, based on my friends' knowledge who are into this kind of stuff, and have asked me about my info to figure it out for me. If you care to know about my signs, you probably live in California. I'm a Cancer, with a sun sign or rising sign of Leo, and a Moon sign of Sagittarius. I still don't know what this means, but all this tells me, (based on online descriptions), is that I'm an emotional narcissist who likes to travel. But to match my apathy regarding this information, the guide explains that all of the zodiacs are wrong, because the Earth has shifted its axis over the past 3,000 years, (and will continue to do so), changing the position of our Earth relative to our constellations, and therefore your horoscope is as meaningless as that exercise program that you paid too much money for, and is collecting dust in your closet. I love to hear this from an expert. Essentially, whatever your Monday is "supposed" to look like according to your horoscope, it probably will be just another average Monday, like all of your other Mondays before reading this, and all of your Mondays thereafter... Change your job.
We continue our tour with Schrodinger’s only remaining construction, a 150 year old telescope. The acoustics are equally as fascinating as we are standing in a perfectly parabolic dome. It makes us sound as though whomever is speaking is wearing a microphone when they aren’t.
Our guide points the telescope to Jupiter. We can’t touch the telescope with our hands because it is so old, but we each carefully take our respective turn, and peek into the eyepiece to view Jupiter. It looks like a marble with waves in it. It goes without saying, but it’s pretty damn cool, to say the least.
We move to the other dome with a brand new telescope this time. The dome itself is even older than the first. We get to see something very rare and special here, Saturn. It’s billions of light years away, so it’s quite tiny in our eyepiece, but you can still make out Saturn’s rings, and even one of its moons. It’s so special. Everyone simply must take turns looking into the telescope twice to fully soak it in.
Lastly, we head to a third telescope. We view what is called the Jewel Box, filled with older red stars, and young blue stars. *(Please Google this image). This image is particularly colorful and wonderful to see. We end on viewing Omega Centauri. *(And feel free to Google this image too). It’s so dense with stars, it appears black at first through the eyepiece, but once your eyes adjust, you can see what appear to be small scratches on the glass. These stars, viewed in light years, are literally older than time itself. To try and understand this concept is a difficult one, and warps my brain a little. I’m so into this. Coming here was Rachel's idea, (of course), and it was one of my favorite things to do while in Sydney. Space has always fascinated me, and this experience blew all of my expectations out of the water. How incredible!
We successfully accomplished Sydney in a day, but with that, includes walking over 9miles / climbing 40 flights / 22k+ steps, and we are BEAT. We take the metro train back to our hostel, and call it a night. The only downside of the day was that my film in my old NIKON 'spaghettied' inside my camera. As I tried to wind it back, the threading got jammed. I tried to crank it the other way in hopes of unjamming the film, but this caused it to snap. I knew it as soon as it happened, and my heart and face fell. The roll was all the way at the right, and impossible to get back into the canister on the left. The only way to get the film out was to pull it and expose everything. I’m so upset. It had the second half of my black and white Europe stills from France and on, and two or three shots from Sydney. Dammit. Dad knows- there’s literally nothing that can be done, and it makes me cringe into physical pain. I just have to eat it. Angry at myself, I toss my wasted film and shots, and load my new color roll. Hopefully I don’t have the same problem with this one.
We get ready for bed and prepare for our flight to New Zealand. A 6AM wake up call- No problem.
-eM
