May 6th Sydney

May 6
We spent a leisurely morning catching up on computer stuff, photos uploads and travel blog. At 10 AM we meet a  friend of mine from my high school days on Paris, France. She has lived here in Sydney for over 30 years. We had a delightful dim sum brunch at a very nice Chinese restaurant in Sydney's chinatown.

From there she took us on a guided tour of part of downtown on our way to the Royal Botanical Gardens. We had still not seen the famous fruit bays and were anxious to make their acquaintance. As we approached the heart of the gardens we could hear loud shrieking sounds, a cacophony of eerie cries, reminiscent of unhappy babies. We looked up into some nearby trees to see dozens of huge bats, flying around hanging in trees and generally pestering each other. Bob and I were in awe of their size, they stood a foot tall with a three foot wingspan. We could have stayed there for hours watching them but needed to move on to see more of the gardens.

Native and exotic trees, shrubs and flowers fill this large park. We paid a small fee to enter the pyramid shaped greenhouse.

There was a very interesting display in the foyer of modern collages made of native botanical materials commemorating Captain Cook and Joseph Bank's journey to this area to view the transit of Venus.

More strolling in the gardens and we were ready for some downtown in our hotel. We made our plane reservation for our departure to Launceston, Tasmania tomorrow.
Eventually we roused ourselves at dinner time for a stroll down Oxford Street, very near our  hotel. Every kind of ethnic food is available in a three block long area. Oxford Street is similar to the Castro district in San Francisco. We dined at a small Thai restaurant, enjoying our Pad Thai and Panang Curry.