...and back through the Botanical Gardens, where Lilly bravely photographed bats, a big spider and - yikes! - cockatoos.
Wouldn't fancy finding that in my dunny, as they probably say round here
Is this some kind of strange Australian Christmas tree/baubles?
Next up: the Powerhouse museum (part design museum and part steam engines/vehicles, with a special 80s exhibit full of clothes, posters, a brilliant-looking Inspector Gadget toy that I would have loved in the 80s, and playable video games) - a well-done museum, we thought. Even if we weren't very good at Frogger. We would probably have been better if we'd been carrying a Frogger console across an actual road.* The Powerhouse is supposed to be one of the best things to do on a rainy day in Sydney, so we were disappointed that it started to rain just as we came out.
* Obscure reference, carry on.
We felt obliged to sample lunch at Nando's (similar format to NZ but not quite as good).
Then on to the Australian Museum (natural history basically - we mainly came for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, which was very good, although the 'winner' had been removed as you may have seen in the press). Some good dinosaurs too, but we were pressed for time before closing to see the whole place.
Then a quick drink in the Marble Bar - a fantastically grand underground bar full of marble, of course, and art. Had a bottle of James Boag's Pure, the first drinkable Australian beer I've found (thanks Rich for the suggestion) - although technically it's Tasmanian so still in a sense overseas.
Lilly wanted to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D at the "world's largest Imax" - Lilly was a little disappointed with the film (she loves the Disney version), and I think it would be much better in 2D but enjoyed it a lot nonetheless. Stock plot aside, it's visually inventive (Tim Burton pulls off a mix of actors and effects better than James Cameron) and Helene Bonham Carter shows how many times she's seen Blackadder II, to good comic effect.
The rain had been with us all afternoon but was light enough that we decided to walk back up to the Rocks, where we spent an enjoyable couple of hours in The Australian watching the rain bucket down outside and I had a couple of nice pints of Fat Yak, as recommended by (I think) Time Out - one of a dozen draught beers and 90 in total available here.
Saturday was largely handed over to shopping, which I am sure Lilly will cover in more detail, and a fine lunch at 4 Ate 5 (Time Out gave it a 5 star review while snobbily insisting that it never gives 5 stars to cafes. And we were passing). Then we met an old friend Angela, back in Sydney after a few years in London, to get a few local tips, and finished with dinner at Harry's Cafe de Wheels, a local institution (Oxford alumni may think of a much bigger and less mobile Sid's - it no longer has apparent wheels, though I assume it must have once been in a vehicle). Huge queues!
I may leave it to Lilly to tell you what was in her Hot Dog De Wheels...
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