Sydney Day 3

Our third day in Sydney and we again did anything but what we’d planned. We had a leisurely breakfast and then walked to Darling Harbour to catch the ferry to Circular Quay. It’s quite a pleasant little 25 minute ride across the harbour, going past Luna Park where most of the families with kids got off. Of course I had to take the odd photo or two along the way:

From here we caught the bus to Bondi Beach. I don’t think Bondi is particularly representative of our beaches being packed with people like European beaches! But you can’t come to Sydney without going to check it out.

The first thing we did when we got here, though, was get a coffee fix. I have my priorities after all. The cafes facing the beach were packed out and were quite expensive. We found a little cafe on the corner which had more reasonable prices and had people sitting on milk crates on the footpath. The coffee was great though!

After this we went looking for the Seafood Restaurant Ela wanted to go to for lunch. It was more a fish and chips joint, but had won prizes for its fish & chips. Once we’d found it and had settled on our lunch-stop, we went down to the beach. We came past beautiful tiled seats and planters which I had to photograph, and then Ela went onto the beach while I wandered around on the concrete above and took photos:

Then we had lunch at the fish & chips place. I had swordfish and chips, which was very nice. Ela had the half-lobster mornay with chips for $18.50. It was very nice. So was my swordfish ;-)

We had toyed with the idea of going to Vaucluse House after lunch but Ela was keen on seeing the Chinese Friendship Garden, so we went there instead. I had never seen it this crowded. But it was nice to see quite a few people, especially families, getting into costume. The jade wedding procession that used to be in the QVB and was now supposed to be here is sadly reduced. Now it’s only the carriage itself (the bride and groom and their costumes are gone) and that is behind hip high dirty glass and is itself covered in dirt and spiderwebs. I didn’t want to put up photos of it in this sorry state:

                      

We had a pot of tea each – one of oolong and one of Pu Erh tea, as well as some Chinese specialty sweets. It was all new for Ela and wasn’t outrageously expensive either at $11 for the lot.

We had about 2 hours to kill before meeting up with David and Kyla at Circular Quay, so we wandered through Darling Harbour a little. Ela went to get changed into warmer clothes, while I took advantage of the fantastic golden light of this time of day and took too many photos:

 

We met up at the ferry station at Darling Harbour (Pyrmont) to ride back to Circular Quay again. I took photos again (how could I resist!?!?) as the city lit up around us:

         

Once back on dry land, I had the chance to set up my camera for some long exposures while we waited for David and Kyla to arrive at Circular Quay. Not as many photos since they were all 15 – 25 second exposures:

  

We had a nice dinner at the Paragon Hotel, a place Kyla and David knew they could eat at without worrying about their various allergies and intolerances. I was good and had a haloumi salad (which was really, really, really salty), while Ela had the lamb wraps, which were a lot nicer. David’s steak looked great, as did Kyla’s fish and chips.

We wandered around the harbour in the direction of The Rocks, but since it was a ‘school night’, David and Kyla headed home soon after. Ela and I ended up having 45 minutes to kill so went to the City Extra for a hot chocolate because it was quite cold and windy outside. I would not recommend the hot chocolate. It was sickly sweet and at $5.60, rather expensive. Ela couldn’t even drink hers because it was so cloying. I forced mine down but regretted the nausea later.

Then it was off on the last ferry to Darling Harbour at 9.55pm. I only took a very few photos then since I’d already photographed most of the sights earlier. But not quite so dark with so many lights:

      

When we arrived at Pyrmont, we couldn’t actually go the way we had come earlier in the day – I assume it’s because the Maritime Museum was closed. We ended up having to walk through the back streets and car parks, but at least it got us out of the cold wind!

Sydney Day 2

Since we couldn’t face doing a great deal of walking today, we changed our plans to head straight off to the Opera House and then Government House since that would be our only opportunity to see it. Before that, though, breakfast was in order. We stopped at the little cafe (Voodoo) just outside the hotel for a reasonably priced brekky and then headed off on the tram to find some thongs for Ela’s poor blistered feet. We found some for $3 at Paddy’s Market and then ventured into town via Central Station and then a train to Circular Quay. Nice views from the station platform:

Next stop: Opera House – yesterday’s nice weather was over with, though:

 

We walked past – Ela didn’t want to walk up those stairs with her bad knees and worse feet, so we just continued past to the Botanic Gardens on our way to Government House. Government House is only open to guided tours (free) Friday to Sunday, so we had to view it today. I’d never been inside so was very keen myself. Government House is built in the neo-gothic style, so it looks just like a little castle:

 

Photos were not allowed inside, so I took a couple through the window. I think they turned out quite well.

Since it had started raining a little in the meantime, we decided to go to the Art Gallery. This was supposed to be about 800m away. Seemed like 8 miles, but there were some nice sights along the way. We exited the Botanic Gardens at The Conservatorium, another ‘little castle’:

We headed down the street and came by this palm with nesting Lorikeets:

 

And the State Library which was open, much to my delight:

Sydney Hospital, through which we cut to The Domain, had a beautiful sculptured fountain:

The Art Gallery is a beautiful building, with even more gorgeous paintings hanging inside. The Picasso exhibition had only just finished, so some of the walls were bare. We were just in time for a tour so took that through. It was quite interesting but killed our feet some more!

We had a change of plans for dinner, so just headed to Woolworths to buy some bandaids, Betadine and dinner and brekky for the next few days. This took us past St Mary’s Cathedral and Hyde Park and the Sydney Tower again:

 

We bought our few odds and ends and took the train back to the apartment and cooked our dinner and watched some TV before crashing.

Sydney Day 1

It was a 4 o’clock start this morning – time enough for a coffee and then it was off to pick up Ela before heading to Coolangatta airport for our flight to Sydney. All went off without a hitch, even though it was Jetstar…

We arrived in Sydney and got lost trying to find the shuttle, so gave up and caught the train. We bought the weekly multipass 3, giving us unlimited access to all trains, ferries, buses and trams as far as Newcastle and Kiama and Katoomba. Bargain if you intend to use the trains a bit, which we do.

We made it to the Goldsbrough Apartments way too early to check in, but were able to leave our luggage there. We made our way back to Paddy’s Markets for yum cha at the Marigold on George Street, near Paddy’s Markets. It was just like in China – except more expensive. Our lunch only came to about $32 for 2, so that’s quite bearable. Next stop, since we were already there, was Paddy’s Markets. Ela summed it up quite succinctly: it’s all hair, hats and handbags. Nothing terribly interesting, so we left after a walk down 3 aisles or so.

We’d arranged to meet up with a friend of mine to do the free tour around Sydney, so we headed down to the Queen Victoria Building. It’s changed a fair bit since the last time I took someone there. All the old photos are gone, as is the Queen and her regalia exhibition, and the jade wedding procession too. I asked about it and was told the Queen had moved to Canberra and the jade procession has moved to the Chinese Gardens’ foyer. We can see at least one of them while we’re here. Yay! Of course, no trip to the QVB is complete without a photo or two (OK, it was a lot more than that) if you’re a tourist:

We still had some time to kill, since we couldn’t afford to do more than look in the shop windows at the QVB, so we went across to Town Hall. I remember it having a gorgeous interior, but it was closed, unfortunately. We rested by the front door a little bit while we tried to decide what to do with the next hour. We didn’t want to walk too far because we knew we had a 3 hour walking tour ahead of us, so we decided to go to the pub :-) Why not, after all!

After a nice beer in the pub across the road, we headed back to Town Hall to meet up with my friend. She was already sitting waiting for me so we headed straight back to the QVB for a coffee at the Vienna Cafe. The coffee didn’t stand out particularly in my mind, but we had a nice little catch-up before heading back to Town Hall to find the tour.

We met Matthew, our free guide, just near the anchor by Town Hall. As we waited for the tour to start, the crowd built to about 30 people. Matthew was pretty good, very knowledgeable, and told us things about Sydney and Australia we had never heard about. The tour is well worth doing.

The tour started at 2.30pm and went til about 5.30pm, ending in The Rocks with a great view of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Here’s some pictures of places we encountered along the tour:

 

We were very, very footsore after all this. My poor friend had to run for her train to make it home in time to get ready to go out for dinner with her family. We just staggered slowly for our tram to Convention from Central Station.

We collected out luggage and checked in to our hotel and collapsed on our beds for a while. The room is nice and big and, since it’s actually an apartment, has an oven, dishwasher, microwave as well as washing and drying facilities, along with the normal hotel-room fare. Very nice for the price, and really close to Darling Harbour too.

We were both hungry so we had to torture our poor feet back into our shoes and head over to said Darling Harbour to find some food. There’s a food-court in the Harbourside centre, so we checked that our and ended up having a really well priced, not excessively unhealthy meal of chicken and salad for about $7 each at The Wishbone. It was quite delicious.

Of course then I absolutely had to take some night photos of the pretty lights now that I’d done the photo course. Here’s some pretty shots of Darling Harbour and Cockle Bay (even if I do say so myself!):

 

We headed back to the hotel room to collapse, only to hear fireworks going off at just after 8.30pm. What a shame. I knew that if I got dressed again and staggered back to the harbour, it would all be over. It was sad we didn’t know they were happening.

Overall, a good day, though we’re quite exhausted and sore at the end of it.