Change In Plans

Good morning, and greetings from Sydney. It is 5:30 on Sunday morning, and we are headed to the airport, en route to Lord Howe Island. We have had a fun and eventful 13 hours back in the big city.

Our flight from Ayers Rock landed at about 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon. The highlight of the flight was watching “Four Holidays” (formerly “Four Christmases”) together on the plane. Except for the scene where Vince Vaughn tells his nephews that there is no Santa, it was great for kids in the sanitized airplane version. We have some explaining, backtracking, and reassuring to do with Zola on the whole “no Santa” thing.

We stayed at a hotel called Blue, which is a recently converted wool warehouse in the Wollomooloo district, right downtown. Blue is managed by the Taj Group, out of India, and has the best service of any Australian hotel we have stayed in.  (Kangaroo Island and Angorichina were better, but don’t really count as hotels).  The building sits on a pier, jutting out into Sydney Harbor.  Russell Crowe owns the best apartment in the warehouse (as at least a dozen people have told us).  The hotel and its bars are a bit of a scene, and on Saturday night they were packed with beautifully dressed, tanned, fit Sydneysiders.  When we were checking out this morning, there was a stream of hotel guests coming back in -wobbly legged and dazed- after a long night of fun.  Sydney is living up to its reputation.

In the early evening, I went for an iconic Sydney run: through the botanical gardens, along the harborfront, up the steps of the Sydney Opera House, and out to the base of the harbor bridge.  I passed at least a dozen engagement parties, bachelor parties and hen parties, mostly still in the “taking pictures” part of the evening.  There was a long line of cabs and limousines going into the Opera House, so there must have been a 7:00 performance of something.  The weather was perfect, and the streets and parks were thronged with people.  Sydney has high quality of life.

We met a friend from South Africa, and her new husband, for dinner at a Buddhist restaurant.  As we walked in, Tallulah sniffed the incense in the air, and said, “It smells like the Hindu gods.”  Perceptive child.  It was great to see Rosemary, who was one of India’s closest Cape Town friends and colleagues for years.  It is too bad that she left South Africa, but she seems to have a wonderful husband and  to be happy in Sydney. What’s not to like?  The Buddhist food was surprisingly good: even the kids went bak for seconds.

We feel like there is a lot for us to see and do in Sydney (I almost typed Cape Town).  We will be on Lord Howe Island for about four days, and then back here for a few days before we leave for New Zealand.  Both kids have been pleading with us in the taxi to cancel the flight and just stay put for a few days.  Maybe they are just tired from too many early mornings.

Lord Howe Island is usually described as “the most beautiful island in the Pacific,” which is a pretty big claim.  It is about 600 kilometers east of the Australian mainland, and is very small (11 kilometers long). Only 350 people live on the island, and only 400 guests (a strict limit) are allowed to stay each night.  We are planning to snorkel and scuba dive, to hike, and maybe to surf.  It will be different from anything we have seen to date on the trip, and should be fun.