Opera House Revisited

On Mom and Dad's last day in Oz, we opted for a tour of the Opera House, a walk through the Botanical Gardens, and a spin through the Art Gallery of NSW.

It's hard to oversell the Opera House--the interiors are just as jaw-dropping as the exterior, and its nativity story has lots of juicy noir elements: budget-busting, backstabbing, and scandal after scandal. But when all is said and done, the building is simply a marvel--a sculpture so brilliant that the engineers had to invent the technology to build it.

Check out the purple rug--Pavarotti refused to be photographed on it because of the karma.

After a behind-the-scenes tour of the Opera House, Mom, Dad and I walked through the Botanical Gardens to the Art Museum of NSW--the gardens were exquisite, the effect aided by the hundreds of sleeping, macabre flying foxes hanging in the denuded boughs above. At the Art Museum, Dad reminds me, we viewed a painting by our very famous neighbor in my home town of Lexington, Virginia, Cy Twombly. It was his triptych of Turner's "Fighting Temeraire" in flames. Funny how one travels so far to see art created in one's own backyard.

I know they call this place Oz, but . . .

. . . when we spotted this waterspout from our livingroom, we started to get concerned. We've observed a great many amazing sights from our windows here in Whalie (whales, dolphin, the southern cross, awesome sunrises, rainbows, kayaking races, swimming races, sailing vessels of all ilks, possums, rabbits, bush turkeys, parrots, flying foxes, seaplanes, helicopters, massive waves, glorious storms) but this might just take the cake.

Grand Grands

The photo speaks for itself--three grandparents with the kids and PK in Canberra.

Canberra

Keeping up the crushing pace, we zipped back to Whalie and scooted off again, this time for the nation's capital. The folks and I were in the advance party, leaving a day ahead of PK and the kids. We managed to get lost in the middle of Canberra (there were no lights!), and then miraculously intuited our way to Joan's doorstep. I think I'm getting a feel for this place.



After all the nature worshipping, it was time for some culture. We spent the morning at Parliament House, the afternoon at the National Gallery, and the evening at the Canberra playhouse for the Bell Shakespeare production of Much Ado About Nothing.

Parliament House is quite a wonder. The architects went overboard with the symbolism but in the best of ways. For example, you enter into a majestic hall that evokes the gum tree forests with its many green marble columns and the color schemes of two houses were also inspired by the gums (green for the leaves and red for the blooms). By far the coolest feature is the building's green roof, built way ahead of its time. Its environmental friendliness is only a side benefit--the main function of the roof's grassy expanse is to encourage the feeling that the people are above the government. I likey.

With its Sydney Nolan paintings of Ned Kelly, the National Gallery is awfully special too. Besides the Ned Kelly collection we enjoyed seeing some great American art (Jackson Pollack's "Blue Poles" and two Chuck Close portraits) cleverly purchased before their value went into the stratosphere, and some powerful Asian art.

Back at Joan's, we met up with PK and the kids and then set off to see the play, a rollicking production that capped the day off perfectly.

Oh, and PK and I once again climbed the hill behind Joan's house looking for kangaroos . . . and we saw about 20 of them. Aren't they gorgeous?

Wine Tasting and Gorge Gazing

Next stop was Lovedale in the Hunter Valley for some wine-tasting. Got there too late for afternoon imbibing so we had to go for the dreaded early morning tastings where the wine mingles with toothpaste on your palate. We soldiered through it, hitting Hungerford Hill and Brokenwood. There's nothing like a 10am buzz. We got to see some wild kangies grazing nearby, but that may have been through wine goggles.

We stayed at Lovedale Cottages (not to be confused with the Cottages at Lovedale--heck if we'd known the difference we might have made the last afternoon tasting), in a very quaint faux Aussie outback style homestead.

The schedule demanded we move onward to the next stop--Leura and the Blue Mountains. We made it in time to see the glow of the sunset (sort of) on the Three Sisters. The temperature went down to well below 10 degrees Celcius.



We stayed at the Old Leura Dairy, revisiting the scene of Grandma Joan's notorious 70th bday party in 2006.

Tasmanian Devilishness

Back to Sydney from Cairns, the folks, PK and I set forth on a trip sans children (Grandma Joan stayed at Whalie with the kids). First stop, Walkabout Wildlife Park (been there, done that with Justine and the Holbrookes). Ah but there's always a twist at WWP. This time, we got to see the feeding of the Tazzie Devils.



It was primal. You have to imagine the grunts and snarls, truly elemental stuff. Dad was most impressed.

Atherton Tablelands and Barron Gorge

Still a little dazzled by the previous day's Reef experience, we bid farewell to Stephen's lovely condo (view from the living room featured to the left) and headed back to Cairns via the Tablelands and Barron Gorge. The sites were all rather terrestrial but still lovely, of course.