Sydney was the last leg of the Australia portion of our trip. Sydney is located on the east coast of Australia, in New South Wales.

Sunday November 18
We stayed at the Travelodge Sydney which didn't have wifi access in the room, only in their foyer. They sold a one hour pass for AU$10 or a 24 hour pass for AU$20. I bought the day pass, and found out it literally gave you 24 hours of online time, not that it expired after 24 hours. Luckily, our room turned out to be on the third floor, right above the foyer, so I was able to weakly get a signal from our room.

I logged on to check some email and we did some much needed laundry. At 9:45 our laundry was done, and we went to Longrain, a Thai-influenced restaurant half a block away from our hotel and highly recommened by Fodor's. (As a by the way, I've become a big fan of Fodor's: for both Hawaii and Australia, it's given us great tips.)

We got there right before their kitchen closed, and we shared a tangy duck dish with cilantro, as well as a scallop and prawn dish with mint and cilantro. It is restaurants like this which impress me the most: they take a simple dish but give it a twist to make it unique. In this case, the spices and flavoring of these dishes blended superbly with the course itself and made them stand out.

Monday November 19
We woke up in time to catch our pre-arranged 8:30 Sydney city tour and lunchtime cruise. We rode on a bus through various parts of Sydney, learning about its history and districts. We stopped at Mrs. Macquarie's Point to take pictures of the Opera House and downtown, Bondi Beach, as well as a couple other places. Our bus tour ended at The Rocks, a district within Sydney.

The lunchtime cruise was being handled through a different company. Though our itinerary said we were supposed to go on a lunch cruise next, the driver/tour guide said our name wasn't on his cruise list. After having been successfully jedi mind-tricked at Coconut Grove, I decided not to trust him, and we waited around for a representative from the other company to show up.

In a few minutes he did, and we asked if our names were on his list. He replied that he only had a general headcount and not an actual list, but that if the cruise was on our itinerary, it was probably fine. We gave him our names, and he said he would track us down if there were any problems.

The cruise ship was a pretty big boat with 5 decks. Lunch was an unremarkable but perfectly fine buffet. After we ate we went up to the top deck, which was open to the air and sea. The ship made a big circle around the harbor, and I was able to take lots of pictures of the harbor bridge, downtown, and the Sydney Opera House.

The cruise ended at Circular Quay. We were never approached, and I still don't know if we were supposed to be on that cruise or not. Circular Quay was a convenient place to be dropped off, as we were told the best way to get to the Sydney Zoo was via a Circular Quay ferry. Our timing was almost perfect -- the ferry left about eight minutes after we got tickets.

The Sydney Zoo was amazing. Not only do they have a huge number of animals, most of them roam around freely. We saw several peacocks strutting down the walkways throughout the day.

Unfortunately, we only were able to get in 2.5 hours at the zoo because it closed at 5. We managed to see most of the exhibits, but we would have liked to spend more time at many of them. After the ferry returned us to Circular Quay, we had to figure out how to get back to our hotel.

Initially, the Sydney subway system looked very confusing with at least 5 lines stopping at Circular Quay going on multiple directions. It turned out to be extraordinarily simple, however, as there were only two platforms, and all of the trains going in our direction stopped at our station (Museum).

After we got back, Suzy napped while I caught up with stuff over the Internet. We got dinner at BBQ King, again recommended by Fodor's. Their Peking Duck appetizer was great, as was their Beef Chow Mein, but the salt and pepper calamari and prawns was a little too salty. It's possible this would have been ameliorated if we had ordered rice. In all, I would go back, as there were several other items I wanted to try, and their Peking Duck was amazing.

Tuesday November 20
We slept in since we had been doing non-stop activities for a while. While at Hamilton Islands we had signed up to climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge at noon and see a play at the Opera House at night.

We ate brunch at Rossini's, a cafe at Circular Quay, and then made our way to the Harbor Bridge. The climb itself was great and quite safe. People go up in groups of twelve plus the guide. You are given a lot of equipment to make sure nothing blows away (including yourself), and unfortunately you aren't allowed to bring any items like cameras. They provided radios and headsets for everyone. I had never seen headsets like these before -- rather than attaching to your ear, these were a solid piece of plastic which attached to your cheekbone and sent vibrations across the bone to your ear.

I had initially thought it would be a long climb, as the duration listed was 3.5 hours. They really made the climb to be very accessible. The first hour was orientation and suiting up, and included attaching yourself to a mock bridge span and climbing up, across, and down a platform. The next 2.5 hours were spent between small amounts of walking and climbing, and large amounts of standing around listening to history or information, or chatting with other people. In all we stopped at least six times, though that was fine as it was a great day with superb visibility and light winds. In the very far distance we could see the Blue Mountains.

After the climb we stopped by a bakery to get Suzy a scone and me a cookie, and then went home to change. We arrived back at Circular Quay right before 6:00. Our performance wasn't until 8:00, and on the website it had said we could pick up our tickets at the main ticket office until 7:00. This proved to be incorrect, and because our box office didn't open till 7:00, we couldn't get our tickets until then.

It was 6:00 and we hadn't figured out where to get dinner, and it turned out the main restaurant at the Opera House was closed for a private function. I asked at information where best to get dinner, and he suggested Aria.

I had looked at Aria in the Fodor's guide but had dismissed it, as not only did it say that reservations were essential, it said, "Make your reservation before you even get on the plane." But, we were close by and the man at the information booth seemed to think it would not be impossible to get in.

As it turns out, they did have an open table, and while we didn't get seats with a view of the Opera House, we still got a window seat with a view of the Quay. I ordered a seared scallop appetizer and a duck entree. Suzy got some sort of chicken dish (I will get an update later) as well as a rocket salad (which we later found out is arugula).

We were served an amous boush of seared mackerel with a ginger-carrot puree and a bit of pomegranate. All of the dishes there, as well as the wine, were amazing. Aria is now one of my personal top five restaurants. Time was a bit tight, so we didn't get a chance to fully enjoy the experience, but it was a great one nonetheless.

The show we got tickets for was Tales from the Vienna Woods. I knew almost nothing about the show, except that it looked marginally better than the other three offerings available for that day. The story was about a young woman in the early 1930's near Vienna. The story was sort of interesting in a this-is-really-easy-to-predict kind of way, very dark, and a little surreal. The most surreal scene was when a bunch of people in the play went to a burlesque show, and out came two topless woman riding suspended carousel horses which wandered from one end of the stage to the other. No, I'm not kidding.

After the show, Suzy helped me take some night shots of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge before we took the subway back to our hotel so we could pack for our flight to New Zealand the next day. Mostly, I discovered that if I wanted to take good night shots, I'd need a monopod or tripod, but I did manage a couple okay pictures.

 

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