I have wanted to visit The Land Down Under since I was a little girl. Who isn’t curious about this country with such amazing things as cute koalas, kangaroos, surreal Uluru/Ayers Rock & the stunning Sydney Opera House? My family and I have finally crossed off Australia from the top spot on our travel bucket list and we had an amazing adventure exploring the Outback, Sydney and the Blue Mountains areas.
First up is our first stop to the beautiful harbour city of Sydney where we spent almost a week exploring. I will do two more posts from our other stops in Australia next. Here are some photos of our adventure in Sydney:
We arrived at Sydney in the evening and this was our fist view of the Sydney Opera House from our room at the Shangri-La. The online reviews were spot on about how amazing the view was from the Premier Grand Harbour View rooms and the staff were extremely friendly as well!
It was raining and cloudy pretty much all week, but the Sydney Opera House still shined and is one the most stunning architectural masterpieces we have ever seen!
One of the many Mine! Mine! birds who enjoyed hanging out with us over dinner overlooking the beautiful Sydney Harbour.
This was on our ferry ride from Circular Quay over to Manly Beach.
An evening shot of the entrance to Luna Park. The distinct smiling face is one you’re sure to never forget!
The sun beginning to set over the Sydney Harbour Bridge while on our ferry ride over to Manly Beach.
This is Mia and I on Easter Sunday on our walk to the Sydney Opera House to go on the tour for the first time!
This is a view from inside the Sydney Opera House glass curtain walls of one of the eastern shells with a view of the western shells.
A view of the Northern Foyer inside the Sydney Opera House with its distinctive purple carpet.
Mia and I enjoyed seeing the beautiful Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House.
The stunning Concert Hall. This was the most majestic space we saw inside the Sydney Opera House.
Our future architect in front of the sign honoring the Danish Architect, Jørn Utzon who designed the Sydney Opera House. We were shocked to hear that he never actually had the chance to see it completed in his lifetime!
A view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge from the fountain in front of the Sydney Opera House.
We loved the name of this city on this directional sign!
A beautiful view on our tour around Sydney from the hop-on, hop-off bus.
It was another gloomy day, but we really wanted to see Bondi Beach on our last afternoon in Sydney!
Mia at the stunning Bondi Beach.
Mia loved this cool circular stone walkway which felt like the edge of the earth on the coastal walk.
There were many of these cool rock formations along the coastal walk.
A beautiful view of the waves coming in on the coastal walk.
A map of the Eastern Beaches Coastal Walk.
A lifeguard stand at the end of our coastal walk. We were running out of daylight, so we decided to take a bus back to the city after this stop.
We decided to try out Uber for the first time. It was the first time our driver had been out of the city and to the Featherdale Wildlife Park. To add to our adventure, at one point he ended up going the wrong way on one of the roads, but we eventually made it and overall it was a great experience! The photos below are from the Featherdale Wildlife Park which was about a 45-minute drive from the Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney:
We really enjoyed meeting the adorable koala bears at the Featherdale Wildlife Park in Sydney.
A funny wombat we fell in love with! It looks like he got his nose in a spider web!
Danny with one of the friendly kangaroos at the park.
Mia had a great time hanging out with all of the kangaroos at the back of the park!
Mia feeding one of the kangaroos an ice cream cone! This experience was her favorite part of our stay in Sydney.
A close-up of one of the beautiful kangaroos at the park.
The kangaroos were pretty funny and we really enjoyed the time we had with them at this amazing park!
A really close-up shot of a stunning ostrich who wanted to check out my camera!
On our last full day in Sydney, we really didn’t want to leave without doing the Bridge Climb experience. It was another gloomy day, so we weren’t too sure if it would be worth it or not. Even though it rained on us once we were at the top, it was well worth it and we are very happy that we decided to do it at the last-minute. The photos below are from our Bridge Climb experience:
Mia on our climb to the summit of the Sydney Harbour Bridge!
My family and I on one of the top sections of the bridge! We had to put our rain jackets they provided on at this point!
A lovely view of the city behind us from the top of the bridge climb!
My family and I with the stunning Sydney Opera House in the background! Luckily, it hadn’t started raining yet when we made it to this part of the bridge climb! It was a bit scary at first, but seeing the view from the top of the bridge was definitely the top highlight from our visit to Sydney!
For more information about Sydney and activities in the area, please visit: The Official Tourism Site for Destination NSW
For more information about the Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney, please visit: Shangri-La Sydney
For more information and to experience feeding kangaroos and meeting koalas, please visit: Featherdale Wildlife Park
For more information on climbing to the summit of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, please visit: Bridge Climb Sydney
We can now mark another Red Pin Adventure off our travel bucket list: Sydney, Australia (See the Sydney Opera House, koalas, & climb to the summit of the Harbour Bridge)
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