Sydney Botanical Garden & Art Gallery

Enya and Brandon arrived in Sydney and were lucky enough that their hotel had a room ready even though it was hours before their check-in time. They did very well and actually stayed up until evening in spite of the fact that they had been traveling for over 30 hours !  We flew in from Auckland the next day and we all made our way to John and Bev at Cabarita. 

After a good night sleep and catching up with Duffy and Bev, we went for a walk through the Royal Botanical Garden and onward to the Sydney Art Gallery as well.  The garden has many impressive trees and sections for varying types of plants.  One huge tree called Dragon's Blood (Dracaena) has fallen over on it's side and just continued to grow that way. 


At the Art Gallery there was a Henry Moore bronze sculpture that had been worn down where people had put their hands on it.  It was quite abit smaller then any of his works that I have seen and the greenish color was very interesting.  Inside the gallery was a chrome sculpture of Captain James Cook.  The sculpture shows him in a contemplative pose and is interpreted as him reflecting on how the invasion in late 1700's has affected modern Australia.  We couldn't believe the size of some of the older paintings as they would easily cover an entire wall in our home.  The amount of details in some of those paintings was shocking considering how much paint and work would be needed.

Duffy and Bev spoil us every day with fabulous and unique dinners and of course having this time together is so special and the real reason we choose to travel here.  We are so thankful to them.