Doing Darling Harbour With my Parental Units

I'm still playing tour guide for my parents. Today, Bill joined Mom, Dad and I to go and explore Darling Harbour, which is where the Aquarium is, among other things. I couldn't believe it - Bill and Ruth have lived in Sydney for the last 25 years and raised two kids here, and neither of them have been to the aquarium! (How is such a thing possible?).

We caught the train down to Town Hall station and headed to the Aquarium first off. It's quite a walk from any of the train stations to Darling Harbour, and by the time we got there Mom needed to rest her arm and Dad needed a coffee. So we ordered drinks and sat in the Aquarium's cafe, just watching the world go by (including about eighteen kajillion schoolkids on excursions... the place was a sea of school uniforms, I swear!). Once again our YHA cards came in handy (I made Mom and Dad become members) and we got concession priced tickets to the Aquarium.

I loved the Aquarium as much the second time round as I did the first! I've now been to four different aquariums in Australia, and I can safely say that the Sydney Aquarium is still the best. It has by far the best information plates by its tanks, and lots of activities and panels directed at kids to keep their interest. I'd forgotten that in each of the three big tanks, they pipe in music appropriate to the setting. We sat and ate lunch in front of the big window at the very end of the Coral Reef tank, which was delightful.

Once we'd made it through the gift shop, we decided we all needed another coffee, so it was back to the cafe near the entrance to the Aquarium for round two. I would like to point out that Dad and Bill had beers instead of coffees, and tried to convince us that they were drinking "flat whites". Mom and I were not fooled.

Mom's feet were really bothering her after yesterday's walk, so today she tried wearing her walking shoes instead of her sandals. Unfortunately it appears that the damage had already been done - although we kept to a slow pace and took lots of rests, it was clear that Mom was finding walking quite painful as the day progressed. There's another tourist train similar to the one we rode yesterday in the Botanic Gardens that runs a circuit around Darling Harbour, so we decided to take it down to the other end to the Powerhouse Museum, our destination for the afternoon.

I had originally planned to get us all dropped off at the Aboriginal Cultural Centre about halfway down the harbour, so Mom could watch the didgeridoo demonstration - but the place is closed! Wah! Hopefully we'll have better luck in the Northern Territory.

The Powerhouse Museum was pretty cool. I think my brain was on a bit of overload though, as I was having real problems concentrating and taking in any new information. The museum is dedicated to Australian technological advancements, and had all sorts of interesting displays. We took a picture of Bill beside the first train to ever run in NSW. Mom and I enjoyed watching the replica of the Strasbourg Clock go through its hourly display - that was pretty amazing. There was a whole gallery on how technology and design has changed throughout the centuries, and included examples of clothes, furniture, and household objects from the 1700's onward. Another gallery was full of steam engines used for different purposes. Down on the lowest level was a gallery about the development of computers and artificial intelligence. The material there was a little bit dated but still interesting. However I was getting pretty tired at this point and had pretty much stopped reading all the little info blurbs.

Mom and I had wandered around the museum separate from Dad and Bill. We finally found them again, sitting on one of the couches by the entrance, about 15 minutes before the museum was to close at 5pm. Apparently they'd been looking for us for about 45 minutes, and had been completely unable to find us! Ha ha! In the meantime, they'd enjoyed yet another cup of coffee.

Poor Mom's feet were really hurting, so it took us a long while to get back to Central Station. When we got there we decided we needed one more break before getting back on the train to Caringbah - one more coffee it was! Our train was absolutely packed and we had to stand for most of the hour-long ride back, although one woman was kind enough to give up her seat for Mom. (Sometimes having your arm in a sling can be an advantage.)

When we got home, Dad and Bill headed outside to enjoy another beer and to swap stories over the BBQ, and Ruth, Mom and I drank tea at the kitchen table. Mom's soaking her feet in salt water in the hopes that her blisters will go down. Hopefully tomorrow's bus ride to Canberra will give her some time to rest. I, too, am quite happy to have my feet up this evening. I'm a wee bit sore too! And I have another long walking day ahead of me tomorrow - I'm going on a field trip with Ruth's class. But more on that another day....