We take off from San Francisco International around 11 pm and don’t see dawn until about 11 hours later. This was an inter tropical convergence zone (equator) sunrise photographed as it unfolded. The new moon and Venus were so beautiful! Too bad it doesn’t show up well taken on an iPhone:
Norfolk Island! We flew directly over it, first time I’ve seen it from the air. Usually our route doesn’t take us this way, but we were circumventing a bad area of thunderstorms.
Next was a direct overflight of the mysterious and elusive Lord Howe Island, about 500 miles off the east coast of Australia. It’s a bucket list place of mine to visit. Look at that peak, would ya! It was an incredible sight with no good way of photographing it. The fighter pilot in me wanted to roll up on a wing tip, heh, but that would have woken everyone up and gotten me a spot on CNN news. 🙂
Once there, I took the ferry to Manly Beach. It’s about a 15-30 minute trip, depending if you catch the high speed boat or the regular one. I love, love this place!
Pure bliss! A chilled glass of riesling and a seaside table at The Bower, my absolute fav eatery in Manly and even Sydney itself.
These huge lizards (or iguanas) were all over that day! Everyone was taking pics of them.
View from the ferry on my return
The next morning I woke early and hiked around the Royal Botanical Gardens. Look at the reflection of the harbor in the glass of the opera house.
I forgot what kind of tree this is in the gardens (acacia??) but the old, sprawling trunks fascinate me. I’d love to bring my colored pencils next time and sketch them.
High tide pushing through the sea wall. Check out that HUGE cruise ship passing by. It was Regent’s Voyager.
Voyager passing under the bridge–and just barely.
So many benches, so little time..
Organic graffiti. Poor bamboos. Luckily they grow like weeds.
It was a WONDERFUL layover! A blast, and the weather was PERFECT. I haven’t been in over a year and try not to fly there. I love BEING there, I just don’t enjoy the overly long and busy late night flight to get there. This week I fallback into my usual “rut”…Beijing.
