{"id":5586,"date":"2023-02-17T19:32:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T19:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/?p=5586"},"modified":"2023-03-24T18:40:49","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T18:40:49","slug":"sydney-the-outback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2023\/02\/17\/sydney-the-outback\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney & the Outback"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Having canceled their last biennial meeting in Buenos Aires, ISER<\/a> headed to Australia this year and gave us an opportunity for a family trip Down Under. Due to time zone changes, Westley spent his entire 7th birthday aboard our 15-hour direct flight from SFO, complete with party hats, cupcake, music video, and a loaded Kindle Kids<\/a>. Our arrival in Sydney was traumatizing when the customs dog sniffed out apples and cheese that Melody had failed to declare. Fortunately, we adapted quickly to driving<\/a> on the left side, despite struggling with the tight hotel<\/a> garage. After unpacking, we marched to Happy Chef<\/a> for seafood and laksa noodles, past Hyde Park<\/a> to Flour & Stone<\/a> for fig tart and panna cotta lamington, then through the Royal Botanic Gardens<\/a> to Circular Quay<\/a>. We cooled off with gelato<\/a> on the ferry to Taronga Zoo<\/a> over views of the Sydney Opera House<\/a> and Harbour Bridge<\/a>. The heat kept the zoo animals sluggish, so we hurried back for XLBs<\/a> and called in early ourselves. We awoke early Saturday for oysters, sashimi, aburi scallops<\/a>, and lobster noodles<\/a> at the Sydney Fish Market<\/a>, which fueled our visit with dugongs and shovelnose sharks at Sea Life<\/a>, followed by souvenir shopping and lunch of egg tarts<\/a> and seafood paella<\/a> at the Rocks Market<\/a>. Next, we drove south to hike Fitzroy Falls<\/a>, then visited Kangaroo Valley<\/a> for solid pub food<\/a> and the wild wombats of Bandeela<\/a>. On Sunday, we headed to the Blue Mountains<\/a> for the Three Sisters<\/a> and Katoomba Falls<\/a> walks, followed by the railway, walkway, cableway, and skyway at Scenic World<\/a>. For lunch, we ate 3 things at 8Things<\/a>, with pork rolls<\/a>, taro boba<\/a>, and a shot of Josophan\u2019s<\/a> famous hot chocolate to put us in near-coma on our drive to Featherdale Wildlife Park<\/a>. We perked up to koala petting and wallaby feeding before dining on the sushi train at Makoto<\/a>. Still jet-lagged, we awoke early to stroll the Queen Victoria Building<\/a>, then scurried to return our rental car. Our flight to Alice Springs was delayed, leaving bad lunch<\/a> options and necessitating a grocery run<\/a> prior to check-in<\/a>. We cooled down at the pool, then sampled emu tartare, kangaroo rolls, and barramundi ceviche at Saltbush<\/a> before a nocturnal tour<\/a> at the Alice Springs Desert Park<\/a>, where we spied golden bandicoots, malas, bilbies, bettongs, curlews, and swarming echidnas with our red headlamps. We returned to the park<\/a> next morning for howling dingos, feeding birds, and more nocturnal animals<\/a>. Westley could not stand the heat, so we left early for brunch at Page 27<\/a> and an iced latte to fuel our 5-hour drive on Red Centre Way<\/a>. We stopped at Standley Chasm<\/a>, Ellery Creek Big Hole<\/a>, and Ochre Pits<\/a>, then drove the unsealed Mereenie Loop<\/a>, complete with wild horses, lizards, and piles of poop. We collapsed into our glamping tent at Kings Canyon Resort<\/a>, briefly suffering a power outage and fly swarms before enjoying bar food<\/a> and jukebox<\/a> BTS at dinner. We began the South Wall<\/a> walk at Kings Canyon<\/a> before dawn on Wednesday, and was thankful to have forgone the full Rim Walk<\/a> as temperatures climbed and Westley complained. We returned to raid the breakfast buffet, then drove to Yulara to share kangaroo skewers<\/a> before settling into our hotel<\/a> for Legos and AC. Our Field of Lights<\/a> evening tour was otherworldly with a beautiful view of the Milky Way. We continued our pre-dawn routine with Kata Tjuja\u2019s<\/a> Valley of the Winds<\/a> and Walpa Gorge<\/a> walks, followed by a sexist didgeridoo workshop<\/a>, and meat pies at the Kulata Academy Caf\u00e9<\/a>. Our sunset camel tour<\/a> was interrupted by rain, but showed us how lighting starts wildfires. Dinner at Arnguli<\/a> was a unique but heavy sampling of kangaroo steak, emu kofta, and wallaby shanks. We could still see fires burning when we returned to Uluru<\/a> before dawn, and chose the Mala Walk<\/a> and Kuniya Walk<\/a> in lieu of the entire base walk<\/a> to make time for a visit to the Cultural Centre<\/a>, a wooden animal painting workshop<\/a>, and lunch<\/a>. The first part of our Australia trip was action-packed, but definitely eye-opening for us all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having canceled their last biennial meeting in Buenos Aires, ISER headed to Australia this year and gave us an opportunity for a family trip Down Under. Due to time zone changes, Westley spent his entire 7th birthday aboard our 15-hour … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5586"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5670,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586\/revisions\/5670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}