One of the world's great
cities...
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Sydney Opera House across the harbour |
Sydney is one of the most
impressive cities that I have ever visited. It has a
unique blend of a Los Angeles type "big city" atmosphere
(and climate) mixed with European refinement and
culture. This would be a great place to live. There are
around 4 million people in Sydney and it has an
impressive modern infrastructure, owing somewhat to the
2000 Olympics. I intend to return to Sydney in the near
future and spend at least a week. We barely scratched
the surface in three days. |
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Tuesday April 10th
We arrived at Sydney's airport at 6:30 am after our 14 hour
flight from Los Angeles. We bought a
SydneyPass at the airport that allowed us unlimited use of
the land and water transportation systems in the city for
three days. Using the SydneyPass we hopped on an
Airport Express Bus (Line 350) that took us directly to
our hotel, the
Sydney Marriott, located in the center of town next to
Hyde Park. The hotel allowed us to check in early so we
cleaned up and headed out to see the sights. We took the
CityRail subway 2 stops to Circular Quay (pronounced "key")
and walked to the
Sydney
Opera House (four pictures below). |
Harbour bridge from the jet ferry |
The Opera House is very impressive up close. I was first
struck by the fact that the "sails" are made up of small beige
(not white) colored tiles. There is much more glass on the
outside than I had noticed in pictures. I was also surprised
to discover it is actually three separate buildings next to
each other. We bought tickets for the Opera House tour and
ended up on a tour with the local Channel 9 news team filming
our whole group for a weekend TV show. We didn't get to see
ourselves on TV because we had left for New Zealand by the
time it aired. After the tour, we walked over by the
Sydney Harbour Bridge and had a late lunch at
Doyles at the Quay,
which is a famous restaurant. We both had the John Dory, which
is an excellent local fish. The first picture below is the
view from our table toward the Harbour Bridge. In the other
direction we had a view of the Opera House. After lunch we
walked back to Circular Quay and caught a
Ferry
to Darling Harbour.
We walked around a bit and then walked back to the hotel,
grabbed a snack and retired for the day. |
Wednesday April 11th
Our first full day began with a tour of the historic Rocks
area around the Harbour Bridge. We had breakfast at Pancakes Licensed
Cafe, a famous 24 hour breakfast spot. We then took the
CityRail out to Blacktown (about an hour trip) where we caught
a 725 bus to
Featherdale Wildlife Park. This park was hyped in the tour
books as the best place to get close to koalas and kangaroos,
and it more than lived up to its hype. The animals are very
well cared for and the kangaroos, sheep and ostriches are free
to roam around so you can feed them or pet them (second
through fourth pictures above). The koalas are brought out to
the common areas so you can pet them and take pictures with
them while they munch on their Eucalyptus. Crocodiles,
Dingoes, Tasmanian Devils, various endangered species and
aggressive ostriches are kept in fenced enclosures, but are
close enough to view. In the first picture below I am petting
a Wombat, who reacted much like a dog would. This park gets
high marks from me and was the highlight of the trip for Ben. |
We got back to Circular Quay in the late afternoon and caught
the JetCat Ferry to
Manly Beach. We toured
OceanWorld and
then walked down Corso through town to the main beach (second
picture above). Manly has a young crowd and has a very
"California in the sixties" beach-y atmosphere. We grabbed
fish and chips take-out at
Manly Ocean Foods and headed back to the ferry terminal
for the JetCat back. We were among the few brave souls to ride
the open top deck of the JetCat back after dark (third picture
above). Entering Sydney Harbour, the Opera House is striking
at night, but our pictures from the JetCat turned out somewhat
blurred (fourth picture above). |
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