Sunday, February 21, 2010

advance australia fair

Yikes, it's been over a month since Australia Day. I have been so slack in posting photos. The Husband and I had a great day off... even if it was about 108f that day. So glad that heat wave has finally passed.

Crazy as we are, we got up at about 4:30am that day and trucked out to Parramatta, a western suburb of Sydney. I don't usually get out that early and it's always fun to experience the sounds and smells of Australia in the early morning. It was already nearly 100 degrees at 5am, and the whole world smelled strongly of eucalyptus. It was so strong I could barely breathe. We were on our way to the fairgrounds to see the dawn hot air balloon launch. Sadly, it was raining (as it had every day for 3 weeks prior) and so there was no "dawn" just a grey drizzle. But, we went anyway.

Despite it being hot and sticky, we still managed to get some decent pictures.

After that, I'll admit I went back to bed for a few hours. And then we headed down to the Sydney Harbour.

My lovely boss had given us a gift certificate for a harbour front restaurant for Christmas, and we thought this would be the perfect time to use it. Great views, great food... what more could you ask for? The highlight was the table of inebriated old guys next to us who spent their lunch singing the Australian national anthem at the top of their lungs. Ah, good times.

The ferry boat / tall ship parade was great this year, and the air show was pretty fun too. We hung out on a blanket under the bridge until I was well and sunburned, then we headed home. All in all, a fun day off.

No comments: