Category: Uncategorized

Saturday 22nd November: Sydney

This morning started with a walk through the CBD to get to the Sydney Tower Eye. From the top of here, we had a great view all across the city. One thing that really strikes you is just how much the harbour spreads out and the city weaves itself around it.
We sat in Hyde Park with our picnic lunch before exploring it further, including the Anzac Memorial, and then mooching back through a different part of the CBD.
This evening we wandered back to the Opera House for tea and then a concert (Brahms, Beethoven and a Finnish composer I hadn’t heard of before). It was wonderful to be inside the Opera House, especially as the area around the concert hall was open only for concert-goers for the hour before, giving us since exclusive views inside and across the harbour.
We had ice-cream on our wander back round Circular Quay and through the Rocks (which we intend to explore in a few days).

Neil

Friday 21st November: Sydney (and Rob’s birthday)

We both slept very badly last night – the air conditioning wasn’t working properly and the room was really hot (we had complained when we arrived, bit they had no spare rooms to move us to, but lent us fans). This meant we had a bit of a late start today.
We wandered down to Circular Quay, the second busiest quay in the world (in terms of frequency of departures) after Hong Kong. We found somewhere for a late breakfast and then boarded a three-hour cruise around Sydney Harbour, which is huge. It took in places like Manly, Watsons Bay and the relatively narrow opening from the ocean into the harbour. Given it was sunny and the temperature was around 34 degrees, we were glad of the breeze!
It’s just possible that I took around a hundred pictures of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House…
After this, we wandered round to the magnificent Opera House and on into the Botanic Gardens, which are lovely.
We retired to the hotel (and got a new, cooler room) for a while before heading out to Darling Harbour and Cockle Bay this evening for dinner and another wander. There’s a real buzz about this area (and the CBD- Central Business District), which we both enjoyed.

Neil

Thursday 20th November: Port Douglas to Cairns to Sydney

I (Neil) went for an early walk along the beach this morning. Wonderful – could certainly do that every day!
We’d arranged a late checkout today, so were able to squeeze in some last time by the pool.
Most of the afternoon and evening has been taken up by the transfer to Cairns airport, the flight to Sydney and getting the train into the city to our hotel, which is pretty close to both Circular Quay (think Opera House /Harbour Bridge area) and Darling Harbour.

There was a great moment as the plane flew over the city when we could see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.