Fam Adventures
The Sward Fam arrived in Sydney on Thursday, May 25. The Sward Fam (our iMessage group chat name) usually consists of me; my two younger siblings, Emma & Owen; my dad, Ted; and my stepmom, Julie. For this trip, however, my 81-years-young grandmother, Carol, was the fifth Sward Fam member, taking Emma’s place. I would have loved for Emma to come out and see Australia, but we have talked since everyone was here and joked about how she would have hated the pace at which we moved when they were here (we changed locations nearly every day). Owen is 16, and just finished his sophomore year of high school. He had to request to take a couple finals early so that they could make it out as early as they did, and they were only here for a week because he had a school trip to Taiwan directly afterwards! Thanks to Julie’s impeccable planning, they were able to squeeze a ton in to that week.
I did not see them until Thursday night dinner in Newcastle, after they had driven up from Sydney and taken some time to settle in at their hotel in the heart of Newy. I brought my friend Kels to dinner – I had mentioned that they were coming a while back and she’d mentioned how she loves hanging out with other people’s families since she rarely gets to see hers. Dad & Julie have always been enthusiastic about meeting my friends (which I for some reason hated when I was younger but now find quite entertaining) and were happy to have her come to dinner. We went to Mereweather Surfhouse, a seafood restaurant that I didn’t know about before walking past it on a beach-walk a couple of weeks prior. The exterior is beautiful, all glass, and the restaurant overlooks the ocean. Julie had been looking for somewhere to have Thursday night dinner and this seemed like the perfect place, although we unfortunately did not get to enjoy the view as we got there past sundown.
As expected, the fam asked Kels lots of questions about her life and family and Canada, and Owen even got to show off his AP U.S. History knowledge by telling us all how Alaska (which, looking at the map, should really be a part of Canada) became part of the U.S. (which I have already forgotten.. history is not my forte). There were good laughs and good food and I was very excited to see everyone after five months away! They turned in pretty early as everyone was jet-lagged & Kels drove me home.
On Friday, we drove up to Port Stephens for a dolphin-watching cruise. I took them up to Inner Light Tea Rooms for breakfast, which I had been to on my dive trip in April. The views up there are stunning! We had a nice little breakfast, managing to eat just before it rained. Dad got bit by a nosy bird and knocked Julie’s coffee over which was a mess but hilarious. After breakfast, we drove to the marina and headed onto the boat just as it was beginning to rain (and boy, it poured). We saw a surprising amount of dolphins even with the storm, and rainjackets kept us fairly dry so we still had a great time!
Julie had originally booked us for dinner at Little Beach Boathouse, but it was still coming down pretty hard when we finished the cruise. We decided it would be best to drive back to Newcastle before the sun went down and have dinner there instead – driving in the rain and the dark on the wrong side of the road sounded like a terrible idea. We hung out at the hotel for a bit, changed, and headed to a seafood dinner at The Kingfish. Dad and I split the biggest seafood platter I have ever had in my life. I loved it (although it got mixed reviews from the rest of the fam), but it was so massive that we couldn’t even finish the whole platter. Still jet-lagged, everyone was tired after dinner, so I had Ash (the Aussie I had recently started dating) give me a ride home so they could rest up before heading to Hunter Valley the next day.
Saturday morning, I got up and packed what I would need for the next several days away from Newy and the fam picked me up around 11 am. We drove about an hour inland into Hunter Valley – wine country! I hadn’t been able to attend the exchange student trip out there earlier in the semester, so I was really excited to check it out with them. We checked into our accommodation (a cute three-bedroom suite) and relaxed for a bit before heading to our first winery. I can’t remember the name of the first place we went, but we had an excellent (and huge) charcuterie board as a late lunch/snack, and I tried Semillon wine for the first time, a Hunter Valley specialty (it’s a sweet white wine which I love). Next, we headed to Audrey Wilkinson for a wine tasting. We walked around for a bit before we were called in for our tasting which consisted of three red and white wines each, and one dessert wine. I tried all the red wines but still don’t like them – I’ve never liked red wine and at this rate, I don’t know if I ever will!
Our tasting ended just in time for us to watch an absolutely breathtaking sunset over the valley. I’ve put a few photos from the day below but the rest can be found in the Hunter Valley Sunset Photolog. After the tasting, Julie took us to a gorgeous little restaurant (that I’ve also forgotten the name of) for dinner. We saw kangaroos on the way which was of course very exciting for the fam! And still pretty exciting for me too, although I have seen many of them by now. Our dinner was several courses (this was required as they did not do ala carte at all), which we tried our best to move through quickly – Julie revealed during dinner that the following day we would all be getting up well before dawn to get in a hot air balloon at sunrise! She’s pretty notorious for ruining surprises so we were all shocked that she had kept this secret for so long and of course very excited to be going up in a hot air balloon. I had an excellent espresso martini with dinner – Owen tried it (we also snuck him sips of our wines during the tasting earlier in the day; being the youngest child sure does have its perks) and absolutely loved it. Not surprising since the kid has been drinking coffee for years now, but it was pretty funny to see his reaction to it compared to his distaste for most of the wines earlier. What a treat for him too – I don’t think I ever even tasted an espresso martini until I was about 25!
We got up sometime around 5 am the next morning and loaded up into a shuttle van to drive to the field where the hot air balloons would take off. It was cold, which I really hadn’t anticipated during packing. We were all layered up. The shuttle drove for about 30 minutes before pulling into some field in Hunter Valley, dropping us off, and unloading the balloons. It took maybe another 30 minutes for the crew to blow up the balloons. I took a ton of incredible photos as the sun started to come up. There was a layer of fog in the valley which added an extra pretty element to what would have already been a beautiful sunrise. All the photos from the whole experience can be found in the Hunter Valley Hot Air Balloon Album. We were in the air for around an hour before settling down in a neighboring field. Takeoff and landing were both pretty smooth, and the whole ride was very peaceful, just floating up and down on the wind. Big thanks to Julie for organizing this as it was such a cool and unique experience and something I will never forget! Afterward, the shuttle took us back & we were fed a ‘champagne breakfast’ (brekky + mimosas).
After breakfast, we headed back to our suite to pack up and head to the Blue Mountains. Dad took the scenic route (through the bush instead of back towards Newcastle & then down to Sydney on the highways), and we stopped at this random biker stop for a snack on the way. I got to show MaCarol a kookaburra that I saw perched near the back of the building! We arrived at our accommodation (Echoes Boutique Hotel, absolutely adorable) just in time for a gorgeous sunset – you could see for miles right off our back patio. We grabbed dinner at a local pizza shop where Julie somehow broke a salt shaker & spilled almost the entire thing onto her salad (hilarious) and headed to bed early after a very long day. Photos from the sunset & pictures from the following day in the mountains can be found in the Blue Mountains Album.
We woke up early the next day (Dad knocked on our door to tell us to watch the last of the sunrise out our window) and went on a short hike to Katoomba Falls before breakfast. We only had to drive a couple of minutes down the road from our hotel! After, we headed back into town for breakfast before heading a little further out to hike at Wentworth Falls. MaCarol impressed us all with her hiking – apparently she had been walking multiple times a week for a while before the trip to get herself ready (so cute). Owen and I broke off from the rest of the fam and went all the way to the bottom of the falls. The trails there are so well done – tons of built stairs, railings everywhere, and everything very well maintained. The way back up was quite a challenge. It was still chilly but by the time we got back to the top, I was down to my t-shirt and still sweating. Afterward, we headed back into town and did some shopping at Macpac, an outdoor clothing & equipment store. Dad & Julie were nice enough to buy a soft-shell, windproof (and water resistant, I think) jacket as I had mentioned that I came to Australia quite unprepared for the autumn weather! They all got a few things as well, as the prices were low compared to outdoor brands in the US, and everything in the store was high quality.
That afternoon we headed to our final destination – Sydney! We stayed at Pier One, right on Sydney Harbour (close to all the action!). After checking in and relaxing for a little while, we headed to dinner at The Squire’s Landing just as the lights of Vivid Sydney were turning on. Vivid is a light festival held in Sydney every year for a month (end of May to end of June). Lights are put up all throughout Sydney – they even project visuals onto the Sydney Opera House, as well as a few other structures in The Rocks (a historic area of Sydney, worth Googling). After dinner, we walked through the city and bought tickets for the light & sound experience in the Royal Botanic Gardens. When we finished walking through the gardens, Owen & I decided to take Lime bikes back to the hotel instead of walking, thinking we would save some time and enjoy a little ride. We did enjoy the ride, however, we did not save any time – there are a bunch of no-riding/no-parking areas for the bikes around Sydney and we totally struggled to navigate these. We got right next to the hotel on the road adjacent to & above the actual road that the hotel was on (we could have parked the bikes and walked down a grassy hill to the hotel in about a minute), only to discover that we could not park the bikes there and had to turn around and go down to the main road. By the time we finally made it back, Dad, Julie, and MaCarol had beat us there! Whoops.
The next morning, we ate breakfast at the hotel (probably the best hotel breakfast I’ve ever had) and discussed what to do for the day. MaCarol wasn’t feeling too well, so she ended up staying at the hotel while the rest of us took a ferry across the harbour to Manly. At my suggestion, we rented bikes and tooled around Manly for a few hours. We went through Sydney Harbour National Park and down to Quarantine Beach. Julie headed off a bit early to go meet MaCarol (she also did not want to do the uphill climb that came after going down to Quarantine Beach, & who can blame her, it was quite a hill), and after Dad, Owen and I returned the bikes, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Guzzie’s (Guzman y Gomez – a Mexican food chain here.. I would compare it to Chipotle but it really doesn’t even come close) before heading back on the ferry.
From there, we hucked it straight to the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb! I knew nothing about this before Julie had asked me if I wanted to do it with Dad & Owen a couple of months prior. A ton of celebrities have done it, and their pictures in the ridiculous suits they make you wear are posted all over the building that you start in. They give you a long spiel and suit you up in a bunch of gear – a full body suit/jumper, a full body harness (both legs are strapped in like a climbing harness and then pieces go over your shoulders as well), headphones so you can hear everything the tour guide is saying, and a handkerchief, hat, and sunglasses (all three of which strap to these pieces on the jumper so nothing goes falling off the bridge). Then, you “climb” the bridge. Mostly it is a lot of walking with maybe 4 ladders that you have to climb up at the beginning and down at the end. The whole time, your harness is clipped into this safety system they have installed along the whole route – the only real risk to your safety would be if you fell on one of the ladders, and even then you certainly wouldn’t fall off the bridge. We got to the top during sunset and the view was absolutely breathtaking! We also got to see a massive cruise ship leaving Sydney Harbour while we were up there which was pretty interesting and probably something I’ll never witness again. After the climb, we got dinner (I can’t remember where now as it is currently August 29 as I finish this post that I started in mid-July..) and wandered around Sydney afterward to see more of the lights.
On May 31, our last day together, we all took the ferry to Taronga Zoo before I had to get on the train back to Newcastle. Photos from the zoo can be found in the Taronga Zoo Album, and photos from vivid and around Sydney for those couple of days can be found in the Around Sydney (Again) Photolog. The zoo was great – I barely made it to the train on time after helping with the fam’s checkout process from Pier One, but I managed to hop on within a minute or so of it leaving and I was on my way back to Newcastle to get studying for final exams!
It was an absolute treat to get to show my family around Australia. I can’t believe that it was already three months ago as I am writing this. Time flies.
