Day 3: Touring the Opera, Watching the Whales (Aug 13)

Unlike yesterday, we started off earlier today (enough sleep). Desmond and Yannis were kind enough to accompany us to the bus-stop for bus 626 to Pennant Hills train station.

We had one major unfinished business from the day before : Getting on to the Inside Tour of the Sydney Opera House. It was amazing to hear the inside stories, the up and downs, the politics and the drama - all wonderful parts of an operate itself! No photo-taking inside the performance halls but we had a beautiful package of photos and videos at the end of the tour (of course, got to pay, extra-lah).

Now, for the main highlight of the day - WHALE WATCHING!

Praise God for the wonderful, sunny weather! Just the day before, the winds were so strong that we were almost blown away on the top of the Sydney Explorer Bus! It was not long before the humpback whales showed up. Here's the commentary from the tour leader :

"Quite surprising how many whales we got to see this afternoon. There would have been an easy 10 whales within a couple of miles radius around our boat. Pretty good for the cross over of the northern and southern migration. We spent most of our time watching an active pod of 3 throwing their tails around a fair bit!"

https://www.facebook.com/whalewatchingsydney

Here are a few professionally taken photos by the tour operator as a summary of our whale sightings this day

Now that the whale-watching adventure is over, it is time to see those in captivity. Came back just in time for the SeaLife Aquarium located near the whale-watching drop off.

Yes - this is Eunice's latest pet! It is a female platypus called Sidney. She followed us home from the SeaLife Acquarium. When we got back home (Desmond/Eudora's home). Sidney was promptly introduced to her Dugong friend as well!

Birthday video messages to Ariel Lim - fellow agent in England!