Sydney Vivid Festival

At the end of May (on Blair's birthday weekend) we headed into Sydney to check out the Vivid Festival of Light.  This festival, quite similar to the Canberra Enlighten festival that we posted about a little while ago, has been running for 6 years now. Every night from 6 pm to midnight over a two week period, Sydney's famous landmarks come to life with light and music. 

Here are some of the pictures we took!

We were also very fortunate, on the second night we were there, to be upgraded to a two-bedroom apartment in our hotel - which happened to come with a phenomenal Sydney Harbour view. We quickly invited some of our friends to join us in enjoying this fantastic view.

Here are some of the pictures we took from the living room of our hotel room!

And finally, after we got home, Blair spent a bit of time using photoshop to come up with this blended version of the Opera House. Pretty cool!

Canada

In April, we traveled back to Canada for a VERY awesome event - Andrew and Stephen's wedding!! We spent a fantastic 6 days in Vancouver catching up with family, attending the wedding, and watching Stacy's family meet (and get to know) Matty.

We were also very fortunate to have had enough vacation time to travel to Ottawa to meetup with some of our closest friends, and to then head onwards to Fredericton and Saint John to visit with Blair's family.

It was a fantastic two week getaway, one which only made us even more excited about moving home next year. We are very happy that Matty had the opportunity to meet so many of the people that mean so much to us.

Unfortunately, we won't be posting many pictures from this vacation (though we have hundreds). As a rule we do not post photos showing Matty's face on our blog. Furthermore, we will not be posting photos of our family or friends on here without their permission. :) 

So that leaves us with two photo to share - the first being a picture of us in Sydney before leaving for Canada with all the luggage we needed to take with us overseas. Who knew that such a little human being required so much "stuff" when they travel? ;)

The second photo is an accumulation of all the gifts Matty received from family and friends back home in Canada. This little guy is incredibly lucky to have so much love in his life. 

 

Darwin

Following Broome, we were off to Darwin (with a minor layover in Kununurra - a tiny little village with a population of 4575 in the middle of nowhere).

Darwin is known for its crocs, and was made "Hollywood famous" with Crocodile Dundee. As we have seen crocs many times before, we really didn't feel the need to see them again. Instead, we did a walking tour of the city and its wharfs (in 44 degree weather nonetheless), and spent the rest of our time relaxing on the deck belonging to our swim up room.

Darwin is a cute little place, frequented mostly by folks in the military. We're glad we finally had the opportunity to experience the city that many of our colleagues speak frequently of.

Swim up room!

Enjoying the pool

Other part of the pool

A typical Darwin mangrove

Down at the wharf

A plaque commemorating the bombing of the wharf in 1942

Roo, Croc, or Camel anyone?

The swimming lagoon - the only 'safe' place to swim in Darwin

Broome

Following Darwin, we boarded a plane and headed to Broome (on the coast of the Kimberley). We were about to start the more relaxing/beach holiday part of our trip! We had minimal plans and tours scheduled for Broome, which we were super happy about after having a rather hectic several months. Other than swimming in the pool or laying at the beach, the only other activities we planned included a visit to the world famous Cable Beach to see its sunset and camels, and a quick half day aircraft tour over the Kimberley.

Here are some pictures from our visit:

Where we spent 90% of our time

How we spent 90% of our time

The famous Cable Beach

Camels heading out

Camels returning home

The reason to go to Cable Beach - the famous sunsets!

Here are some shots of the aerial tour of the Kimberley and its Coast that Blair did. Note that he acted as "co-pilot" in the little Cessna aircraft. Also take note of the landing strip out in the Kimberley!

Blair sat as "co-pilot"

Blair's view as "co-pilot"

Overlooking Broome from the air

Beautiful beaches

Beautiful water

The famous Horizontal Waterfall

The Horizontal Waterfall from another angle

Looking towards the sun

Check out the landing strip in the top right corner

The Cessna after it landed

Private beach for an hour

Perth

After lots of research on Perth, we decided there really wasn't much (for us) to do there. Because of this, we limited our time there to 3 nights. We spent our first day exploring the city on foot, the second day visiting the coast, and the third day driving around the city visiting a few outlook points, in addition to heading to Fremantle to visit the prison (the best part of our visit to Perth by the way - they offered a super cool tour).

Perth is known for being the second most isolated capital city in the world (with Honolulu being the most, apparently). Although it has a population of almost 1.7 million, this city felt a tad barren to us. Although we certainly thought there were some pretty parts of the city, it is not one we could ever imagine living in. We did enjoy stopping for lunch at a cafe on the water on our foot tour of the city. We also loved discovering some of the cool European-style laneways and shopping centers.

Lunch on the water

City view from the water

Stroll along the waterfront

Cool laneway with lots of cafes

Bell Tower

Our second day consisted of driving around to some of the main outlook points of the city, as well as heading to the coast to checkout some of the famous Perth beaches we had heard so much about.

Perth skyline

King's Park Outlook and War Memorial

King's Park outlook

Beautiful beach

Day 3 was the coolest of all days in Perth as we visited the Fremantle Prison. This prison is considered a heritage site as it is the most intact of all Australian convict sites. We did the "Doing Time" tour and were able to explore the prison from its convict origins in the 1950's until its closure as a maximum security gaol in 1991. We toured the 4 main cell blocks, prison kitchen, the prison yards, chapel, whipping post, gallows, and solitary cells.
 

Fremantle Prison

Main cell block

Bucket used as toilet until mid-1980's

Standard prison cell