Royal Botanic Gardens

Yesterday we wandered around the opera house and the royal botanic gardens, it was beautiful. We took a pretty scenic route on the way there and it was very reminiscent of fall, chilly, stone buildings, a street market, with a view of this bridge...

Harbour Bridge from "The Rocks"

Opera House

Andrew and Nikki, my fellow explorers standing next to the Opera House

that's me there in the middle standing in front of the Opera House

inside the gardens there is a bird roped off

we were thinking maybe it's nesting? it just sits there and looks around but never moves

one of the many massive trees inside the garden

yes, those are bats! there are thousands of bats hanging from trees all around the garden, sometimes they get spooked and 20-30 of them fly off at once, it's eerie

some close ups of the bats

a fountain in front of the government house, looking out on to the water

a tulip garden

the government house

there are herds of cockatoos hanging around the gardens

they will jump up on you, and as Andrew learned the hard way, if you don't have food in your hand they will just go ahead and bite you

this guy got right up and personal with me

from the gardens

on the walkway that takes you along the water around the park

another tulip garden

another massive tree on our way out

a boar in front of a hospital, a sign read that if you put money in the fountain and rubbed his nose it brought good fortune, so we did, just for good measure

a huge fountain in Hyde park

Yesterday left me extremely tired and I was asleep probably by 9 and up by 8! I wonder how long that is going to last ha. Today is the first day of classes, mine today is from 4-7 and is on Mass Media in Australia. I'm sure we'll get right into it since there are only 6 weeks of class!