We did taronga zoo, which as I said above is nothing crazy. Just a zoo, but it’s a fun 10 minute boat ride which you can see the bridge and opera house from a great POV. also the cable car is a lot of fun and towards the top you really can have a great view of the city.
We walked around the harbour by the opera house and park Hyatt motzei shabbos, it’s a very nice walk. Most of it is lit up with nice big lights. It goes to the gardens on the opposite side of the opera house but they close supposedly at night. So if you wanna go during the day I hear it’s supposed to be very nice. We just did not have time. But the walk would probably be more fun at night because of the lights and not as many people walking around.
Great synagogue was actually the most entertaining minyan I’ve ever been to. It’s an experience by itself. It’s a full minyan just very proper and formal, and a lot of things you won’t find in a typical Heimish minyan but it does the job and it was entertaining. Very nice shul and definitely worth a trip to see. It’s a very manageable walk from any hotel in the area (assuming based off park Hyatt probably being the furthest away). It didn’t feel like more than 20 minutes each way but I honestly wasn’t timing and I don’t know exactly but it did not feel like the 29 minutes that google maps said.
We did a private tour from Expedia of the blue mountains and that included featherdale. Featherdale is amazing and you get really close to animals and get to feed them. You can spend hours just sitting with kangaroos. Definitely worth a visit. They have these types of places all over and it seems there are a few near Melbourne also but I think featherdale seems to be most famous and may be a little better, it’s pretty big. But you won’t need more than 1.5 hours. Important to bring cash because you can only by the food cups with cash and if you don’t have a food cup you’re missing out on the fun. But they were able to exchange American dollars and charge you with American cash. Food cups are 3 aud as of now.
The blue mountains are cool, but anyone who has done some adventuring in the western us will probably say that it doesn’t compare. It’s still a very nice trip and only a two hour drive out. There are a lot of things to do and you can get close to a lot of cliffs and famous rock fixtures for great pictures. Echo point is the big place where you can see the three sisters. There is also a place called scenic world. They have what they claim is the steepest railway in the world, an old mining track. And cable cars. They go out over waterfalls and valleys hundreds of feet up with a glass bottom. It’s cool, but 49 aud so have to weigh if it’s worth it. Also seems to be always busy.
I would recommend doing blue mountains with private tour because considering price of rental car and parking at hotel for two nights (since it’s a full day trip you would need the car the day before and return the day after), gas and the price of featherdale, you might as well do a private tour. We did for 239 on Expedia which was an amazing price, but he was more of an Uber driver than a tour guide, and did not really do much more than drop us off at the places. However I think that we just had a bad tour guide and others will probably be better. And when you dispute with Expedia for not getting a tour, just an Uber driver, it comes out a lot cheaper than renting a car
. But I still feel that a private tour is worth it because you’ll get to all the places and more and they will usually take you to less known spots and tell you a lot about everything, and you’ll have someone to take pictures for you.
Again, pitamix is the best for food, but coles is really good in bondi junction, they have a lot of kosher food and good stuff too.
In terms of finding out if something is kosher, ka website ka.org.au is pretty good. There is a search bar where you just type in the brand and right away a drop down list will appear with giant yes or no so it really takes seconds ti find food on there, also coles now has a KA on the price labels of many kosher items but not everything has it so just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t kosher and you should still look it up. One thing we noticed that the goyish brands don’t have kosher is crackers, so you may have to spend 6 times the price to get kosher crackers.
In the hotels, most cereals are coles brand and are kosher, fruit juices are usually kosher and obviously the fruits. The Hilton had kosher honey and jams which we had for fruits as well as the park Hyatt Sydney. Ph Melbourne however just had open container of honey that I did not feel comfortable using because it probably had peoples non kosher hot food all mixed in. Could be they had individual packets but we did not ask.
Melbourne will be posted in Melbourne thread.
We flew round trip through Sydney from/to the us, so we had to come back to Sydney last night of trip where we stayed in Hilton junior suite, it was great and more than enough and again, has a full closing door to bedroom so more than enough to be a suite and good option for keeping a baby in the living room. Spa tub in the bathroom can become part of the bedroom if you move the glass doors away. Really cool room honestly. No good views from Hilton though, just some water very far out but nonetheless good hotel for The price.
All in all Sydney was cool place but you’ll probably have much more fun in Melbourne.
