Day 9: Sydney, do I have the guts to do the Harbour bridge walk ?

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Landed at 9AM at Sydney International airport. Due to my traveling I have a lot of experience with Aussie accents so I felt right at home once I landed. Airasia was not a great flight but far from the worse I have been on so I will consider them for future travels. Immigration check was required for people not from Britain, USA or New Zealand. I had paid for my E Visa before I left Canada so I went to the line for people who had the E Visa. I presented my Passport which had been electronically connected to the E Visa. After a few questions I was advised I would be subjected to secondary checks. This has happened a few times when traveling and oddly enough most often when I cross back into Canada on the land border 😊. It was not a harsh interview by any measure. I had explain who was seeing in Australia and where I would be going. I had a lot of people to visit so that took the longest part to explain. I find most of these interviews are just seeing how the person reacts whether than the actual answers themselves. I always stay calm and answer as truthfully as I can without rambling. I was cleared to enter Australia in 30 minutes and I was on my way.

Before leaving the airport I went to the Optra store which sells tourist designed sims. I paid $30 for 500MB of data/day and approximately 30 minutes of calling back home to Canada and unlimited within Australia. This came in handy when I call my fellow Aussie friends and various hostels. My review of Optra service would be good. Within the major cities the coverage was excellent and the data transmission rates were good. I did a lot of facebook updates using just the mobile connection and it still had connection in all but the most remote locations. So if you are a tourist and you need a cellphone plan for a few days than Optra Australia is a good choice.

Back to the trip, On the advise of friends I took the fast train in Sydney CBD. Sydney has a good transit system and I enjoyed taking the trains around everywhere. I would be staying at the Sydney Central Station hotel. This would be my only hotel for the trip and I had gotten a good price for the room. After checking into the hotel I went to see the signature Sydney landmark, The Opera House. When you fly into Sydney you can actually see the Opera House from the air. Probably the flight path was deliberate to give visitors a good look at it from the air. For multiple train rides in Sydney it costs about $8 Australian but you get where you need to go quickly. Train dropped me off at Circular Quay which is the closest station to the Opera house. I walked up to the Opera house and it was an impressive site. Before going into the Opera House I did a walkabout the park towards a site called Mrs Macquaries chair. This is a stone bench cut out of sandstone. For some background Mrs Macquaries was the wife of the governor of New South Wales and legend said she would sit and watch ships as they came into Sydney Harbour. After a quick stopover I went inside the Opera house and it just as nice on the inside as the outside. I had heard the bathrooms were also very fancy but the one I could find was normal so maybe that is just a legend as well. After wandering around the harbor for awhile I was fairly hungry so I went to eat at Maccers (MacDonalds). Food is really expensive in Australia and I paid almost $10 for a sandwich and drink. I had been warned about this prior to going to Australia.

It was the evening by the time I was done with the Opera House and I decided to head back to the hotel because the additional time shift was really draining me. I spent the rest of the evening watching Australian television which reminded me a lot of American/Canadian television except with an Aussie accent 😊. I watched the coverage of the royals and I was sad to realize I would miss them by a few days at a few cities. I needed to sleep at this point so I called it a night. Tomorrow I would be seeing the world famous Bondi Beach.

Answer to my title question:

I didn't do the Harbor Bridge walk but it was mostly due to the price $258 AUD

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Photos

Opera House
World Famous Opera House. Just as impressive in person