Same procedure as yesterday, we took the ferry to circular quay, then another ferry to Taronga zoo. We knew about this zoo since we had watched Back to the Outback. We took the cableway from the ferry wharf to the zoo entry, and met Tom, his family and Sam, who had literally just arrived.

Taronga zoo is beautifully located, facing Sydney, on the other side of the bay. Sydney’s iconic skyline is always visible in the background, everywhere in the zoo. Just that is fantastic – it’s our third day in Sydney, and I’m still missing no occasion to have a look at or take a picture of the opera and the harbour bridge.

We started with a very entertaining seal show and had lunch. The afternoon was about running after the kids, who were going from station to station at a high pace. By mid-afternoon, we had seen pretty much every single animal in the zoo, including lions, elephants, tigers, snakes, tortoises, pygme hippos, chimpanzees, and of course koalas.

Then came the time to say goodbye to Tom, Nathalie, Alfie and Matilda (and Sam) after more than 3 weeks together. We know we’ll see them this autumn, so we didn’t cry too much – but still… It’s been a very nice three weeks together.

We took the ferries back to the apartment, and went to a nearby pub for diner.

For our last day in Corlette, we were gifted with morning sun, breakfast from Two Bobs that Thomas had picked up, and… a great Tour de France stage, with an epic one vs. one fight for the yellow jersey.

We dropped Matilda and Alfie at daycare and school. We spent the morning packing and preparing our trip to Sydney.

We left after lunch. Nathalie and Thomas were clearly very sad. So were we, but they will join us in Sydney tomorrow, so we’ll see them soon.

We arrived in Sydney late afternoon. We’re staying in Rozelle suburds, at Chris’ flat. It’s a lively neighbourhood with small shops, restaurants, takeaways, quite nice to walk in these streets on a busy Friday afternoon. We ate at an Italian restaurant nearby – pizza & pasta, what else!

For our last full day in Corlette, we decided to go snorkelling. But first, we had to watch the replay of the Tour de France, with a great finish on the runway of Peyragudes airport (16% climb, 1m up every 6m).

Because of the strong currents where we wanting to dive, we had to wait for high tide, mid-afternoon. In the meantime, we went for a walk at Soldiers Point, a town 10min from Corlette. We saw pelicans there, found a pier where we could take “instagram” pictures, and ate pizza at the marina’s takeaway.

We were on time for the high tide at Fly Point, in Nelson Bay. The water was cold, 16 deg, but ok with wetsuits. However… visibility was an issue. The water was muddy because of the bad weather the last few days. We still saw nice fishes in the shallow waters. But we didn’t hang around for too long, and quickly started thinking that we had deserved a warm shower.

We went home, got that warm shower we deserved. The kids spent the evening playing with costumes. We played baby-foot, bananagrams. Mike was here for dinner, and we said goodbye to him. We’re going to Sydney tomorrow, the last part of our trip… and we’ll be saying goodbye to Corlette.

We got up early, jumped in a taxi to get to the airport. We’re saying goodbye to Cairns, after 3 full days of summer temperatures and activities.

At the airport, we watched the highlights of the Tour de France while waiting for boarding – of course!

We landed in Newcastle early afternoon, went for lunch and shopping before coming home. Hugo, Tim, Alfie and Matilda were happy to see each other again, played with costumes the whole evening, and watched a movie.

Mike came for dinner: bbq and homemade apple cake. We planned our next day – we’re hoping for nice weather, so that we can go snorkelling in Nelson Bay.

We had a good and long night of sleep, exhausted after yesterday’s adventures. As we were taking our time also for breakfast, we started planning the day… and realised we had to rush to the bus! We caught it, and drove to Kuranda, about an hour from Cairns. It’s located in the rainforest, and was highly recommended day-trip when staying at Cairns.

We arrived there late morning, had a coffee at a nice coffee shop in town and went for a hike in the rainforest. We had lunch along the Barron river, and did a bit of souvenir shopping when back in Kuranda.

For the way back, we took the skyrail for a beautiful journey just above the canopy of the rainforest. We stopped at the lookout to Barron Falls, and got a nice ranger guided tour at the next stop, Red Peak. We learnt about sting-trees, the giant Queensland Kauri tree, the back-burning process (prevention of forest fire, among other benefits), and the epiphytes like the basket fern that had puzzled us earlier.

For the last part of the cableway trip, we got the view on the ocean – and what a spectacular view! The skyrail took us down to Smithfield… conveniently located just next to the wake-park. Tim had a go at it, tried wakeboarding this time (successfully). The other went back to Cairns for further souvenir shopping.

We all met at the night market downtown Cairns, bought takeaway food, and had dinner home.