On Day 5 we started from the Blue Mountains and spent the majority of our day in Sydney. before leaving, I got some photos of the end of the sunrise at Perrys Lookdown Campground.

For Sydney we had planned: Sea Life Sydney, Madame Tussauds, Wild Life Sydney, Paddy’s Markets and Darling Harbour. We did all five but the first three were the better part of the trip.

We bought event passes (that are really worth it) and were planning to go to the Sydney Eye on the way back. Four events and thirty days to visit them for only $70 each. We didn’t end up going to the Sydney Eye (technically still could) but that still works out to be about $23 for each of the three attractions we did visit. I also threw in some surprise adorable plush penguins with Sea Life hoodies on them for Little Sister and Little Brother as an early birthday present.

Most of the photos taken from inside the car are a bit hard to look at because of how dirty the car already was by this time. All those dirt tracks had us washing the windows every second day.

We got harassed by little birds in the shopping centre where we got breakfast. They just fly right in and watch you like tiny hawks. And then there’s the normal pigeons and seagulls. ‘Rats with wings’.

Also, Sea Life gives you discounted parking! Save about half on that ticket.

Sea Life was our first event because we booked through them. A lot of my photos aren’t excellent so I won’t bombard this post with trash. One of the most amusing and cute things we saw was an octopus who was sitting in the corner of his tank. Little Sister crouched to get some up-close photos and he reached out for a big plant attached to a rock, pulled it towards himself and started covering his body with it.

I’ve always liked aquariums because there seemed to be more harmony in them than in zoos. By that I mean, they put the fish together rather than separating them in individuals little boxes and cages (this is why I also enjoyed the other zoos a lot more than I thought I would).

I did most of Sea Life and Wild Life in videos rather than with photos.

They have a eagleray called ‘Ani’, named after Anakin Skywalker because he has ‘no father’ and she is a clone of her mother, Freckle. Her mother hasn’t had contact with a male for about nine years and gave birth to Ani through parthenogenesis (I had to google that to remember how it was said). So, basically, Freckle was like ‘I don’t need a man’ and gave birth to Ani on her own. Pretty cool, huh?

The way Sea Life was set up was very interesting. They had a section of the aquarium that changes from sunset to sunrise and glows. It was interactive and so a lot of the children were really enjoying themselves. there were turtles, a little penguin ride, little touch rock pools and inside the water tunnels was an amazing display of harmony amongst the creatures all together in the tank… and a sea-cow who laid on the floor eating sea-grass the entire time.

Next up was Madame Tussaud’s.

When this was the entrance wax figure, I was pretty excited to see what else was in there. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise that there was an interactive prop here for photos until after I looked at the photo later. We were too busy trying to tell the pushy photographer ‘no’ at the beginning.

I’m just going to throw these all here.

Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum was fun. There were interactive photo spots but there was no way we were going to afford them. I recognised most of them, only one or two that I couldn’t put a name to a face, but I think my favourites were Jackie Chan and Steve Irwin.

After Madame Tussaud’s we went on to Wild Life Sydney. It was a pretty small zoo and went a lot faster than we thought it would but it was still fun.

There was a koala with a baby in its pouch but we could only get a glimpse of its leg dangling out.

I don’t have many photos from Wild Life either because I took more videos. I found Wild Life a little sad because of how small it was. Most of the animals weren’t very energetic but they’re probably sick of people gawking at them all day. I don’t expect them to greet me, I just want to see them comfortable really. The older you get, the more depressing zoos get.

After walking around for hours we headed to Paddy’s Markets… where I was sorely disappointed. I didn’t find anything in the markets that I liked but I went upstairs and found some cool souvenir chocolate. There were little bars of chocolate with Australian animals printed on them. There were some chocolate macadamias as well that were really good. I also bought some Twizzlers but they tasted like sweet candles… and so I mean they tasted like sh*t.

We ended up heading to the next campground not long after that. We decided not to stay in the city for dinner in Darling Harbour. The campsite for that night was Daleys Clearing Campground in Belanglo State Forest. Free, compost-toilet, no water and no electricity: standard campground. It’s big though, and nice to wander around in. Just don’t think too much about the bodies that were uncovered there.