Sydney, Australia: Where are the crocodiles?

Why go to Australia? It is so far from most places in the world, they like to eat vegemite, the toilets flush the other direction, their land was originally colonized by the Brits who populated it with their convicts as a penal colony. All good reasons to go right? Or, the most logical and practical reason, to see kangaroos, koalas, and crocodiles! I mean, they are everywhere right? In the trees, hopping through the crosswalks, and swimming along the shores and beaches of Australia. These are the things we were led to believe as kids, it must be true, so let’s go see.

All joking aside, this was the second time we traveled to Australia, but the first to the more popular and populous eastern coast. Our first trip to Australia was a year prior when Jai was barely 2 years old to the less visited, but tremendously closer plane ride to Singapore, city of Perth. We had an amazing time in Perth, very much enjoying the open space and nature-based activities, biking in Rottnest island and hanging with Quokkas, and eating proper donuts. The temperate weather and laid back atmosphere were much more similar to parts of the U.S. we had lived in, and a welcome relief from the sweltering rainforest climate of Singapore.

We planned this trip as my wife had scheduled the last 5-week block of her maternity leave to coincide with my eldest son being off school for the summer as he was transitioning to a new school later in the fall. We figured we needed to kill the monotony of living in tiny Singapore with a trip to a much larger land, and it was on my wife’s list of places to go. Admittedly, I was not very excited about the prospects of flying 8 hours on a budget airline with no entertainment on a daytime flight with a one year old that still required two naps during the day and active legs that needed to walk around….. but this was part of the sacrifice to experience new things as a family.

The planning for holiday that was 15-days long was an extensive undertaking. We wanted to both spend a little time in Sydney proper, as well as experience a secluded beach coast and a mountainous getaway, all of which were within a 4-hour drive from each other. This meant renting a car, planning out vastly different accommodations, packing for very different temperatures at each location, but the most daunting to me as usual was the flight. I was resigned to letting my older son watch and play games on his tablet for the duration of the plane flight, mostly interrupting him to go use the toilet and eat. With one child distracted, my wife and I could figure out how to continuously hand-off the baby and keep him entertained during his 4-hour wake windows.

Surprisingly, the flight to Sydney, went better than expected. During the baby’s wake time, we created a little play area in the tiny space our legs are supposed to be and used cups, cutlery, and rolled up paper napkins from our flight for him to place and remove while sitting on the ground. We alternated that with a handful of magnetic blocks and fidget spinners for him to mess around with. In addition to a couple of walks up and down the aisle, my wife also managed to get the baby to poo in the airplane toilet once! When he was eating, he watched me play Fruit Ninja on another tablet, which actually kept me sane during this exceedingly long daytime flight. All in all, we arrived into Sydney in pretty good shape.

After arriving in Sydney around 7PM, our main task was to get dinner in as quick as possible, head to the hotel and start the process of bedtime for the kids. We were lucky enough to get a harbor view room with a balcony at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Sydney, as well as be gifted Guest of Honor status for our stay. This entitled us to use the club lounge for a substantial regular morning breakfast that included a fresh cooked eggs station and views of darling harbor. I tried every morning to ask for an upgrade to a suite, but to no avail, so we made do with the sofa couch for Jai and the baby travel crib on the floor for the little one.

After you travel enough times, you start to realize that every big city starts to feel somewhat similar. While there are local history and heritage to a city, unique language and culture to the people, and obviously very different yummy foods, the city life becomes fairly standard in the day to day activities. Sydney was no different, and is our usual custom, plus the relief it provides for our feet, we try to take a big bus tour on the first day to get a lay of the land, an overview of the history, and an easy way with kids to hop on and off at different points.

As is also usual with traveling with little kids, you plan as much outdoor activity as possible. Near our hotel on darling harbor was a huge playground we visited several times, with plenty of space to run around as Jai chased birds while screaming. Sydney is also well known for having a world class zoo experience where you could stay overnight in a fancy hotel and wake up as if you were in the bush with animals at your window. We didn’t do that, but the visit to the zoo was quite nice, with a specific farm section for little kids to get up close and personal with farm animals, and of course, a playground to run around on. The baby made some friends with chickens and Jai continued to chase and scream at random birds…. highlights of their trip.

It only seemed proper, while in Sydney, to visit the Sydney Opera House, a very clear symbol of the 2000 Olympics for the world to recognize this far away place. I have to admit being underwhelmed when we got there as I pictured a much larger venue that seemed so iconic, but likely through age and over-tourism, it was mostly crowded and a bit drab. We did use the day to also experience all the different public transport options from light rail to buses, with Jai particularly excited to ride a train that had three levels. We were quite impressed by both the connectivity and the user-friendliness of the public transportation. In Singapore, while the system is similarly set up for ease, who you get for a bus driver dictates if the passengers go flying through the vehicle right when the door closes, which is quite often.

There is nothing like a family vacation with young kids without some life threatening emergencies. Jai has a pretty severe allergy to particular tree nuts, an issue we became acutely aware of around 5-months old in our first visit to the emergency room for a reaction to some peanut butter. After seeing many allergists with regular blood testing, we carry around an epi-pen and an antihistamine in case of cross-contamination. We have had a handful of minor-medium reactions that only required the oral solution, and several other reactions that have resulted in vomiting and a trip to the hospital in Singapore. We have never had to use the epi-pen before, as it is reserved for the worst case scenario of anaphylaxis.

What was supposed to be a nice dinner near Darling Square turned into an emergency. We had selected to eat at a Japanese donburi restaurant, usually a style of food that would be void of any nut related ingredients. As we always do, we checked the ingredients of his order, and confirmed with the wait staff that the canned drink we got for Jai, which was in Japanese, did not contain nuts. About two bites into his meal, and several sips of his drink, he started complaining of an itchy throat. The situation escalated fairly fast even after we administered an antihistamine, and we decided we needed to inject the epi-pen in his thigh to be safe. To the rescue was my wife, who upon striking him with the giant needle, needed to cradle him after the shock of the shot. As first time users, we were unsure if we even held it for the required 3 seconds and just hoped that enough of the dose had been administered.

Luckily, within 5-minutes my son’s symptoms started to dissipate, but as is recommended after injection, monitoring at a local hospital in the rare case the child has a reaction was required for the next 4 hours. I requested the restaurant manager call for an ambulance and they helped pack up the rest of our barely eaten food. Because it was assessed that the epi-pen had worked, our priority for the ambulance was seemingly downgraded as we waited close to 20 minutes for one to arrive. By that time, Jai was his normal happy spirited self, to which the paramedics were shocked that he even had an allergic reaction. Off to the hospital my wife and son went, smiling and excited about being inside another ambulance again, with me and baby heading back to the hotel for his bedtime. The hospital required only 3-hours observation, but still made for a very long night with discharge and the cab ride home.

After every allergy emergency, slight or severe, it resets and humbles us as to what is important and how quickly your loved ones could be in dire trouble. In Asia, we have come across more food being made with cashew nuts (one of Jai’s worst allergies) that never used to be made with such ingredients. We never figured out what caused his allergic reaction to the food, but we suspect there must have been some cross-contamination. To look on the bright side, we continue to get to experience the ins-and-outs of different country’s medical systems, and it was quite nice to see how cost effective Sydney’s system was. In total we paid around $130 AUD for the entire emergency service, an experience that in the States could cost in the thousands. Thank goodness for travel insurance that has handsomely covered all our medical costs on every trip we have taken.

The next day we were ready for no surprises. So, why not do whale watching in a place where whales are constantly migrating and easy to spot? This was sure to be a wonderful and pleasant experience. There was one caveat, we knew my wife experiences sea sickness, so we loaded up on dromamine, anti-nausea patches and wristlets, and hoped for the best. I have never really experienced any issue with seasickness, so in my great wisdom and feeling of invincibility, I convinced everyone to eat some greasy sandwiches right before boarding. Littered all over the boat, and addressed ad-nauseum by the ship’s crew, were to not be afraid to use the puke bags and not be embarrassed by it. Surely this didn’t apply to me….

The seas were choppy that day, and the size of our boat which was relatively small, did not help much to dampen the waves. Pretty much from the start it felt as if we were in a washing machine and I started to sweat profusely. The captain recommended that if you were experiencing motion sickness, the best place to be was outside at the back of the boat staring into the distance because the combination of fresh air and a fixed point helped steady nausea. My wife and Jai quickly moved to the back of the boat, while I stayed seated inside with the baby strapped on me hoping that the choppiness would pass.

As I started to feel more unsettled, I decided I needed to move outside to the back of the boat or vomit in my seat on my baby. As I got up, already woozy and trying to navigate the boat’s movements, I noticed at least half of the ship’s passengers were keeled over either vomiting or trying not to vomit. Despite my own uneasiness, I had a little chuckle seeing how messed up so many people were, on what was supposed to be a magical trip. Going outside most definitely helped my nausea, but I spent the rest of the 2-hour ride attempting to not puke and also take note of the whales that were being pointed out. I looked over at my wife who had puked several times, mostly trying to keep it together so Jai would not fall over from the motion of the boat.

My first and only whale watching experience aboard a massive boat in Boston was amazing. With this trip, I couldn’t wait until they told us they were heading back to the docks. I managed not to puke, but after walking off the boat and sitting on a nearby bench, it took my wife and I at least 30 minutes to recover after feeling so physically drained from the experience. She had borne the brunt of the misery, having puked 8 times by her account. Our two kids were undeterred and perfectly fine. We probably could have done without this experience.

After spending 5 nights in Sydney proper, the more exciting part of our trip was about to begin, a road trip over the course of a week with a stop along the beautiful coasts and then inland to the mountains. Sydney, which is in the state of New South Wales, has some of the most restrictive laws regarding traffic safety. And, because Australia is so isolated, they have created specific products to fit their rules/regulations, meaning that car seats of all different sorts that we have used for travel in other countries, could not be accepted in New South Wales. In contrast, Perth in Western Australia was extremely lax on their laws regarding passenger travel, so we got by relatively easy. This is all a massive consideration when traveling with a young family and renting a car for our road trip added up quite a bit as we had to rent two car seats specifically suited for the road rules of NSW. Apparently, the highway cameras would catch and fine passengers for not even wearing their seatbelts, so we took this seriously.

Aside from the logistical and monetary hassle, we were excited to leave the city for some nature. The drive from Sydney to our destination of Seal Rocks was about 3.5 hours, meaning 5.5 hours with one stop timed for food and space for the kids to stretch their legs, coinciding with nap windows for the actual drive. Our baby’s first nap was cut after 30 minutes after our older one woke up crying because he…. well, woke up… The second part of the drive was a battle after our one year old struggled massively to get out of his car seat as he was overtired and “trapped”. Eventually, the baby fell asleep in the last 30 minutes, but as we approached the final rural section through a national forest to get to the coast, another emergency happened.

In the back seat, after eating some snacks, Jai was peacefully watching some cartoons on the tablet. The rain had started to come down hard through the narrow and windy roads of the national park when Jai started to complain his tummy hurt. Soon thereafter, he exclaimed (in 3 year old voice), “ohhhh, my cheeks!” and then proceeded to vomit all over himself. The first thought I had was, “not right now, we are no where near a hospital!”, as I was worried he was having an allergic reaction to a cross-contaminated nut again. Instead of pulling over, I sped the last 10-minutes to our accommodations at Reflections Seal Rocks as it seemed more prudent to pull over where there are people and not some dark rainy road in the forest.

After arriving at Seal Rocks, my wife jumped to the back to tend to Jai and I headed to the front office to collect paper towels and garbage bags for the cleanup. While checking me in to our accommodations, the front desk lady said the nearest hospital was about 45-minutes away and that an ambulance would take some time to arrive. Luckily, for us, whatever made Jai vomit in the car seemed to be an isolated incident not related to a nut allergen and he started to recover quickly thereafter. The mess for us to clean, while getting everything moved in to our cabin, was another story.

Our accommodation was a cabin with two-bedrooms with a decent sized kitchen and living space. I had specifically selected a cabin that was as close to the beachfront as possible, so having a deck with a picnic table was perfect to eat meals on and stare out to the ocean. The amenities within the cabin was pretty bare bones supplying cooking equipment and dishware, but requiring you to bring all the groceries and cleaning materials for your entire stay to make meals. The nearest true grocery store was 35+ minutes away, so we needed to prepare and pick up items in advance of arriving at our destination.

The grounds of our stay had roots of family trips in the area for generations, but was recently renovated and bought out by a former news reporter and her husband. As we learned from reading Reflections Seal Rocks’ history and speaking to some other guests who were camping, they have had family coming there when it was strictly camping and much less developed. Today, it was built out to accommodate regular camping, RV stays, and for those less inclined to roughing it, varying levels of cabin living. The facilities reflected what most guests needed such as shared showers/bathrooms, laundry facilities, communal kitchens, and for the families a huge playground.

Seal Rocks was an absolutely gorgeous and breathtaking stay for us. Eastern Australia has many great beaches and shorelines along cliffs, and because the land mass is so large and the population so small, there are many parts of it that felt untouched and unoccupied. In fact, aside from a few people surfing in the morning, most days you could barely see anyone on the massive beach. Our first morning at Seal Rocks we went directly to the beach and crossed some converging waves to get to the tidepools and explore the rocks. Just outside the rocks we witnessed several dolphins swimming in the area. It was a sight you could just sit and stare out at for hours.

One of the big reliefs of any nature destination is that you have no real schedule, no real hustle or bustle of places to go or things to see, you just kind of be. Life in Singapore is not only humid and stifling for space, but the day to day of any big city can really wear you down with modern day commitments. I remarked several times to my wife that how we are, the good and certainly the bad, with our kids in a place like this while not dying from crowds and heat, reflect more accurately on what our natural temperaments are like. Still hotheaded as I always am, at least it wasn’t exacerbated by the weather, environment, and responsibilities to make my blowups at the kids even worse.

Most of our 3-night stay at Seal Rocks was occupied with cooking meals, exploring the different parts of the coastline, and spending unrushed quality time with each other, a rarity. We decided on one afternoon to climb up to Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse, created in 1875 to help guide ships along the rocky coastline. It was one of the best places to view whales migrating, which did not disappoint, and as I’ve gushed over and over again, absolutely breathtaking to see the expanse and emptiness of the coastline. The theme for me being, I like solitude.

The highlight of my trip was this destination. Looking over cliffs, staring out into an endless sea, and feeling the vastness of the world really resets my mind. On one afternoon, we were literally the only people on the beach outside our accommodations. We went to the furthest end of the beach, played in the sand, had running races, explored the cliffs and tidepools, and I couldn’t have been more content. As refreshing as it is for the adults, kids also need absolute free time in nature, devoid of screens and the multitude of other distractions they see everyday. In a place like Singapore where so many of the kid’s activities are indoors with lights blaring and people moving about, I like to think this was as good for them as it was for us. They could truly play and create using their imagination.

After three nights in Seal Rocks, we had another 5-hour drive to our next destination, the Blue Mountains. Being winter in Australia, and moving from sea level to high elevation increased the chilliness dramatically, which made for a much different experience scenically and physically. After a ‘mostly’ smooth commute, we checked in to our Airbnb accommodations, a 2-bedroom in-law unit in Leura. I am always a bit uncomfortable sharing a connected space to the owners in an Airbnb for matters of privacy, even having experienced staying in a room in a house with owners before, but the accommodations here proved to be a very positive experience.

The Airbnb was quite quaint and homely. Our lovely host, Janelle, had a quintessential grandmother feel to her, warmly taking our children around the backyard to feed the chickens and explore the little treehouse that her own grandchildren loved playing in. We learned that her and her husband had spent two decades in Hong Kong during the 1990’s and really valued the experience of meeting and hosting guests from all around the world. Her attention to detail was impeccable, providing a high chair and kids toys/books to freshly baking scones with homemade cream and jam (excellent tasting!). In addition to a guidebook with stay and area recommendations for dining and visiting, she hand wrote cards for each member of the family with kangaroo keychains for the boys. We were highly impressed with how thought out every aspect of the home was for her guests, including sticky notes left all over the home as helpful reminders.

Our plans for the Blue Mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, mainly revolved around a day at Scenic World, a big tourist destination that allowed for sweeping views of the canyons and mountains while riding some unique transportation to learn about the history of the area. The cable car allowed for a glass bottom and landscape view of the vast mountains, while the tram that took you down into one of the gorges was the steepest in the entire world and billed as a bit of a rollercoaster. While there was much history to be learned as the area was originally a large coal-mining operation, the experience was mostly for the kids to ride the transport and get out in nature for some short hikes. With the Blue Mountains one hour proximity to greater Sydney so close, it did tend to be overrun with visitors both local and foreign and lose some of the feel of being in “nature”.

The rest of our trip in the Blue Mountains revolved around visiting the small towns of Katoomba and Wentworth Falls and trying the different local fare. While Singapore has a great food culture, particularly around Hawker Centre culture, we have found it difficult to find quality non-Asian food at a reasonable price. Something as simple as well-priced, yummy, wood-fired pizza were things we could find here that we struggled with in Singapore. We also spent a good deal of time at local parks for the kids to chase around ducks and play on the playgrounds. We noticed, for the most part, how much better mannered the children were in interacting with each other in such spaces than our experience in Singapore or the United States. And on several occasions, my wife and I explored the neighborhood on jogs, marveling at the variety of birds in this region of the world, while gasping for air with the never ending hills we had to run up and down.

As our week-long road trip was coming to an end, we were sad to return back to the greater Sydney area. Our last stop was two nights at a Crowne Plaza in Coogee Beach, one of many magnificent coastlines, but no where near as popular as the famous Bondi Beach. I had pretty low expectations for this part of the trip as it was mostly a holdover to be in close proximity to the airport for our long trip back home in a few days. The 2-hour car ride proved to be a struggle as the baby again was unhappy sitting and falling asleep in the car seat, and upon arrival to the hotel we rushed to unload and get the room settled while I rushed to get the car returned to the rental agency in time. This almost turned into a nightmare when the car would not turn on for over 10-minutes with all the emergency dashboard warning signs flashing. But after much panic, I somehow got the engine started and rushed for drop off.

To our surprise, by virtue of our platinum status with IHG, we were automatically upgraded from a free night standard award room, to a junior suite with a balcony view of the beach and ocean. We are the second highest tier just by virtue of having a particular credit card, but often you need to ask for an upgrade at check-in and usually it isn’t approved. Space is always TOP priority when traveling with kids, so having separate sections of the room where we could get a rollaway bed for the older one and place the travel crib in another section of the room was perfect.

In addition to the nice room upgrade, the hotel also had a kid’s club where the children could go nuts with all sorts of entertainment. Our older one was starving for peer interaction and ended up getting along quite well with a girl his age during his time there, and what parent doesn’t enjoy friend distraction for their little ones? The hotel had fruits and champagne waiting for us as a welcome gift, which was quite nice and unexpected. Every night my wife and I would sit on the balcony after the kids fell asleep and have a night cap with desserts. The only downside of the room, as is the case with hotel accommodations frequently visited, was the lack of cleanliness. But, we were happy and more importantly, surprised, with what we got overall.

For our last two-nights at Coogee beach, we filled it mostly with exploring the boardwalk and coastlines. On our first full day, we met up with one of my wife’s colleagues from their Sydney office for the popular Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach walk. A total of 6km, you travel up and down stairs and boardwalk along the coastline with stop offs at various beaches and fields. Since nearly everyone in the greater Sydney area loves to be outdoors, the trail was quite crowded with casual walkers and selfie takers to hardcore runners and dog walkers. The views were spectacular, and at most inlets or grassy areas, there were playgrounds, bathrooms, and food vendors to stop at. We did not end up doing the entire walk as it would have been a tremendous trek for Jai, but our last stop before a bus ride home was an area where an electric kid’s train could be ridden for $5. Of course, Jai had to take a couple of spins around this children’s dream stop.

What we were mostly struck by in this part of the trip were the ocean baths along the coast. Created to be only partially blocked and raised, the normal crashing of the ocean into the baths allowed for regular salt water to flow in and out of the pools. We regularly saw locals swimming and/or relaxing in the ocean baths, even in the dark pitch of the night after a run. We also noticed how polite and relatively congenial people were, often greeting you with a “cheers mate” as well as apologizing and making eye contact with you casually. I remarked to my wife’s co-worker that people in Australia seemed pretty happy with life, and that systems must be set up well because it seemed like everyone had three kids. She replied that Australia was a good place to raise a family with the wonderful outdoors and relative safety of the country.

Both my wife and I got out at the crack of dawn on separate days to experience running along the coastline in fresh cool air. We sorely miss the crisp feeling of fall-like temperatures and expansive open water views. Living in Singapore, where the humidity, geography, and density of the city is in stark contrast to Australia makes us always wonder when we travel if the place we visit could be a place to live in the future. We came to the conclusion that Australia would be such a place if given the opportunity, but lament the idea of being so isolated from the rest of the world and being on a completely opposite time zone from the major centers of the world. But what it offers in terms of quality of life and family experiences, we hope one day we are fortunate to have the opportunity to live here.

It was sad getting on the airplane for the even longer 8.5 hour flight back to Singapore. To make it even harder, the plane was delayed a further 45 minutes while we sat on the tarmac, with the baby already in nap 1 of 2, which was wasted nap time on the ground. All-in-all, the flight went as smoothly as it could have with my wife and I trading off different types of entertainment for the baby and walking up and down the plane with him. The other one, was happy as a clam stuck to his tablet, rubbing his eyes constantly from too much screen time…. Australia, despite not seeing any crocodiles, kangaroos, or koalas in the wild, captured our heart and forever created lasting memories in our young families expat travel’s life.