On Tuesday morning, October 1, 2019, it was still Monday in Guatemala, so we had a nice time talking with Jared for a few minutes. At one point we talked to a sister missionary who was there while Jared stepped out to grab something.
That day we drove over to the Sydney Australia Temple and did sealings, which was lovely.
Afterwards we shopped and had lunch at the mall across the street.
This is the ANZAC bridge, which we crossed several times that week. (ANZAC = Australia/New Zealand Army Corps).
When we got back home, we finally took a few minutes to play at the beach that had been across the street from our house the whole week. A group of kids was there doing beach rescue training.
Rob went on a little walkabout to explore the tide pools.
It was already late afternoon, and not especially warm, so everyone mostly just hung out on the beach.
I was the only one dumb enough to get it. But by gum, I brought this inflatable boogie board, and I was going to use it!
The waves were really powerful (even though they weren't all that tall), and they wiped me out a couple times.
But I was able to catch a wave a couple of times and sail further that I had ever done on a boogie board before.
Eventually the waves flipped me upside-down, and I held on for dear life until I could stand up. And that was enough for the day.
After that, we all just read books as the sun set behind the hill.
That evening we weren't especially hungry, but we knew we would be if we didn't eat something. But we were all pretty wiped out, and the thought of getting back in the van and braving Sydney traffic seemed just horrible. But then it turned out that the burger place that my friend Dan had highly recommended delivered for $4 (=$2.66 US), so that was exciting news.
As Dan had promised, the burgers and fries from Big John's Grill were ridiculously large, as well as tasty, so they took care of us for the night.
On Wednesday morning, we prepared for our last full day in Sydney.
We drove downtown again and took a walk towards the Royal Botanic Gardens.
There we joined an Aboriginal garden tour. Along the way we saw a couple of cool lizards.
The bark feels like layers of paper.
There were some leaves on one plant that smelled strongly of lemon when you rub them.
The garden had pretty ponds and trees with amazingly huge trunks.
Some trees were covered in vines that take over and eventually kill the tree. But they're cool looking and it's nature, so the garden lets the foliage fight it out.
There was a bush-tailed possum sleeping in one of the trees.
The tour led us over to a view of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge. The guide had a largely aboriginal upbringing, some of his ancestors being aboriginal people. So he shared with us some insights about their beliefs and culture. Scientists believe that the aboriginal people have been there for 30,000-60,000 years, making it one of the oldest cultures in the world. He talked about the strong sense of "reciprocity" in the culture, where if someone does something that helps you out, you should do something kind for them, too.
He also talked about "skin naming", a system of identifying kinship groups (the Sydney area uses a 4-skin name system, though I haven't figured out exactly what that means).
One funny thing he taught us was that the word "kangaroo" is an aboriginal word that means "finger". Apparently, a British guy pointed at a kangaroo and said, "What's that?" and the Aboriginal guy said, "Uh, that's your 'finger'." Whoops.
This tree looks like it's "about to have seedlings!"
There were pretty flowers everywhere.
Here are some koala statues that Jon and Shauna saw.
I enjoyed seeing this bunch of bananas.
Our guide showed us a map that shows the rough areas of where the different Aboriginal language groups are.
He also fed us some traditional "bush bread" with some traditional jam on it. (Except he used regular wheat flour instead of the various seeds they would have used).
I was actually disappointed not to learn more about the Aboriginal people and their culture from either this tour or anywhere else I had been in Sydney. Linette asked what kind of dwellings the people lived in, and the guide showed us this little arrangement of sticks, which reminded me a bit of Nacho Libre's shelter. (I read later that larger shelters like this, called Wiltjas, were used to provide shade, but not shelter from rain. They were abandoned and rebuilt rather than maintained, as the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle did not lend itself to permanent structures.) I'm suspecting there is a lot more to the Aboriginal culture that would be fascinating to learn, but his tour didn't reveal much of it.
My friend Dan Ventura had the same experience--he wanted to learn about the Aboriginal people, but after 6 months in Sydney, he was very surprised at the sheer lack of information he could find. Apparently, the largest collection of Aboriginal art and artifacts was all in a big museum in Sydney that burned down, destroying much of the collected history of the people, so that was tragic. I imagine there was some cool stuff in there.
I found an article from Britannica and the one in Wikipedia to be helpful in learning more about the history and culture of the Aboriginal Australians. They both discuss the Dream-time (or "the Dreaming"), which is the basis of the religious belief about the creation and the connection between spirits and those on earth.
Here is a hive of tiny, native, stingless bees that help pollinate the gardens.
We saw only a fraction of what was available at the botanic garden, but it was time to head over to the Sydney Opera House to see a play.
Seeing a play in the Sydney Opera House was one of Linette's bucket list items for her life, so it was cool to be there.
There are multiple theaters in the complex, and this is just one of them.
From our seat we could see down into the pit where the orchestra sat.
The play we saw was West Side Story. Their American (and Puerto Rican) accents sounded fine, and the dancing and music was great. The story was sad, of course. I keep hoping they'll be smart and avoid the tragedy, but every time it turns out the same. :P
This couple really knew how to dress snazzy for the theatre.
It was fun seeing the architecture close-up.
We did some fun group pictures out front.
Here's a panorama where people run around to get back into the picture so they're all in there twice.
Across the plaza, there was a group of people practicing an energetic dance.
We wandered and shopped for a while, and I got an ice cream cone and saw some jellyfish swimming around in the harbor.
The gal who served was really from France, too, so that was cute.
Finally, we made one last walk through downtown Sydney, and wended our way back home to pack and prepare for the last phase of our trip.
We also had some ice cream and Tim-Tams that had to be finished off before we left, so we did some strong work there as well.
In the final episode, we bid farewell to the Lyms and then join Jon & Shauna Hunt on one last adventure up north at Hervey Bay.
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