I’ve never been one to pass on a chance to create some sort of boondoggle.  When Sara was due to be in Sydney for work on consecutive weeks, I floated the idea that she should ask if her company would pay for her room over the weekend instead of flying her back and forth.  They agreed with my impeccable logic and had her stay the weekend.

I took 1/2 days on Friday and Monday, so I could fly out Friday afternoon and back home Monday morning.  Things got off to a rocky start when my plane needed a tire replaced before we could go.  I thought it might be interesting to watch a tire change on an airplane, but like much of air travel – it was really slow and boring.

Sara had chosen to stay in a hip neighborhood called Newtown – which is about 15 minutes away from downtown by train.  We headed out to a place called “Uncle Hops” on the first night and were not disappointed in their choice of beer or their flat bread pizzas.

The next morning, after a hearty brekkie at Fleetwood Macchiato (HA!), we decided to head over to the zoo.  A bonus is that to get there, we had to take a ferry from Circular Quay – which gives great close ups of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.  Upon arrival at the zoo, we took a gondola up the to the zoo entrance and were again afforded great views of the city.

We met lots of wonderful animals at the zoo.  I got to check out my tall friends:

There was a peacock just roaming around

There was no shortage of our Australian friends, and we finally got to see an Emu.

Once done with the zoo, we headed over to a neat little beach called Balmoral and had lunch on the water and walked around a bit.

Later we headed out to a nice Italian dinner and got our picture taken.

Sunday we went for a run in the park and then walked around University of Sydney.  After that we checked out a big market in Chinatown and then made our way to a brewery in Newtown (Young Henrys) before having some wonderful Chinese food for dinner.

With the boondoggle complete, I boarded a plane back to Melbourne on Monday morning.

So, Sara’s company takes everyone plus family on a holiday every three years or so.  Luckily Sara joined right before this trip was scheduled and we were invited along.  The trip was to the Daydream Island Resort (caution: terrible web site) which is an island among the “Whitsunday Islands” which are off the Queensland coast and near the Great Barrier Reef.

We left early on a Thursday morning from Melbourne and arrived to Hamilton Island Airport before noon.  After collecting our bags, we walked over to the nearby dock for the 30 minute ferry ride to Daydream Island.

After our arrival at the island, we quickly explored the whole of it while waiting for our room to be ready.  It didn’t take long given the island is only 1km long and 300 metres wide.

There was wildlife everywhere – kangaroos and wallabies along with all manner of birdlife. We tried to make friends with the marsupials:

Sadly, they seemed more interested in eating grass and just pooping everywhere. They are basically Canadian geese that hop around.

We were also told at check in not to leave our balcony door open if we left the room (who does that?) – since cockatoos are quite smart and have been known to raid the mini-bars for various food.  While relaxing in the hot (well… luke warm) tub one day, I actually witnessed a cockatoo fly into a room and a few minutes later fly out with a bag of cashews ($6!) in its mouth.  Luckily we closed our door, as this guy was keen to eat our food:

While Sara was off in the mornings doing her corporate “team building” things – I hunkered down and read “The Martian” and generally lazed around like this guy:

It was a good relaxing weekend – we didn’t make it off the island for any excursions, but did get some serious pool / oceanside relaxing in.  We ate way too much food at the various buffets and drank lots of free beer.  Plus the view from our room wasn’t bad.

On Sunday morning it was time to go, and I got a bit of a treat on arrival at the Hamilton Island Airport marina – watching a 737 approach and land very close to us.

Oh, here we are, enjoying ourselves.