The good news is that we managed to make it back to Melbourne in spite of the cloud of volcanic ash that made its way across south eastern Australia in the past thirty-six hours. The bad news is that rather than the sun and warmer weather we were hoping for, we had the privilege of experiencing Sydney in the rain. Winter parkas, high tech rain gear, hats, and gloves should have been in our suitcases, especially for our trek into the blue mountains. But never mind. When our kids were asked yesterday how they liked their trip to Sydney's mountains (after hiking for what seemed like hours through mud puddles only to come to a viewing area enshrouded in misty rain), both Cameron and Sophie responded immediately and enthusiastically, "It was great! We loved it!"
The other bad news is that Sydney brought out the photographer in all of us, with the result that we came home with over one thousand pictures, only half of which do not contain the Sydney Opera House or the Harbor Bridge (or both!). I am not sure when they will all be organized, but I will include a few that caught my eye on my first time through them. They are from our first evening, when the sun came out to tease us about twenty minutes before setting.
The twenty minutes were enough to convince us that Sydney is every bit as beautiful as we were promised it would be, and to make the trip more than worthwhile. The rest of the story I will save for later.
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