Dragonfly Sex and High Tea (Intercontinental Hotel, Sydney)

Sydney Cont'd - for post one click here.

We decided to indulge in a spot of High Tea at the Intercontinental Hotel, Sydney. It cost around $50 for a buffet selection of food, a pot of tea and a flute of sparkling wine. It certainly wasn't the nicest high tea I have gone to, and the food was rather average... but it was still very much enjoyed.

I was very excited by the gingerbread men, I loved these as a child... the creme brulee was delicious too:

Finger sandwiches and scones were rather average, but the self serve crepes packed a punch (note the skittles, yes I am like a child):

I just love photos of macaroons. There is something so *food porn* about them. These looked a lot better than they tasted, they were below average as far as taste and texture go unfortunately:

The cute buffet arrangement:

In terms of value for money, quality and taste, I wouldn't rate the Intercontinental's offering of high tea very highly. There are plenty of hotels offering high tea in Sydney - next time I'll try another. Hooray for the economic term known as 'competition'.

There were some very educational elements to the day, experienced immediately before high tea when we took a leisurely stroll through the Botanical Gardens.

Flying foxes - according to one person in our group, "They're like bats, but fuzzier".

Check out this St Andrews Cross Spider in its web. I was wondering what that dark white zig zag / zipper looking part was... the Bear Gryllis of our group informed me that spiders who make very large webs add this feature so that larger animals don't accidentally walk/fly through and destroy the web. Trusty Wikipedia somewhat confirms this: "The white patterns are called stabilimentum and reflect UV light. They have been shown to play a role in attracting prey to the web, and possibly to prevent its destruction by large animals."

 By far the most interesting part of the animal/insect educational series in which we found ourselves involved dragonfly sex. This male red dragonfly procreated with a yellow dragonfly in a typical display of aerial acrobatics. Immediately afterwards, the yellow female hovered over some lily pads and started laying eggs into the water (while the male hovered protectively above her). We could actually see the eggs, and could see little fish eating them. The female was subsequently exhausted, and rested on a leaf while the male continued to dart around energetically, looking for his next victim conquest. As one person in the group exclaimed, "Wow - we just saw the circle of life!". This was all very exciting for our group of childlike adults.

So there you have it - our stroll through Sydney's Botanical Gardens turned out to be more educational than a documentary. High tea was very much deserved after all this intellectual stimulation.