It was officially the first day of the 7 days in Sydney adventure and Dervs and Cuzzy were awake before the sun had even thought about hitting the Harbour. They were very sure to make clear that didn't mean getting out of bed until a more reasonable hour. It was time to bundle them into the minivan (labelled prematurely as the "FunBus" until the amount of napping stripped it of its title) and set off down to Darling Harbour. First impressions? Lots of flags with effeminate men with glitter smiling on them. Took a bit of explaining that Darling Harbour wasn't really known for a LGBT scene but I think as soon as we hit the Aquarium they were convinced.
While the Aquarium wasn't on the top of their "must see" list, they had a blast. Not only was Amanda the Aquarist fun and full of interesting info, but we all got to poke fun at Cuzzy who couldn't figure out how to say "Dugongs" for the life of him (and just to think, we were going to Wooloomooloo later that day!).
Here's one of the little fellas here - they are hypnotic to watch glide around in the water.
And they eat about 21 kilos of lettuce a day which is why there are only around 5 in Aquariums across the world.
So the tale goes that back in the day, sailors used to mistake dugogs wallagongs dugongs for mermaids. I think we know who Cuzzy preferred.
After saying goodbye to Mermaid Lagoon and its residents we moved on to the Oceanarium to check out the sharks, turtles, stingrays and a myriad of other creatures.
Dervs was more than happy to have the glass in between her and the sharks but Cuzzy was itching for some adventure. Next time Cuzzy!
Next on the itinerary, well ... I'll leave it to Cuzzy to do the segue ...
"So after checking out the how they look after fish, we then went to the Sydney Seafood School to kill fish haha."
Ahem.
At the Sydney Fish Markets you can do a class with the Sydney Seafood School. This particular class was all about cooking seafood Thai style so first up the instructing chef went through about 7 or 8 different dishes while the class took notes and took in the mouth watering aromas. Then they broke out into groups to replicate all they had learned.
While Cuzzy isn't the biggest fan of seafood it didn't stop him from trying it out. The team made a Thai prawn soup, a Thai red fish curry, and a squid salad.
Here's Dervs getting the squid ready
Dervs: "Scooping minature fish from the belly of a squid obviously not long
after his “last supper”…not the most pleasant experience in the world!"
The food didn't change Cuzzy's mind about seafood but everyone else enjoyed it and the class was fun regardless.
Quick whip around the Fish Markets where you can pick up all sorts of seafood. Bit of barra anyone?
