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Published: October 16th 2008
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View from Hotel Room
Sydney Harbor and Cruise Ship Our Aussie Adventure began in Sydney on Oct 2nd and ended in Sydney on Oct 12th with visits to many points further north.
It makes since to break the trip up into segments.
PART I - SYDNEY
We arrived in Sydney at 7pm, same time that we left Christchurch in NZ, and grabbed a taxi van to the Hyde Park Inn. This was an awesome location directly across from the park with a balcony view of the harbor and all points in between. After dumping our bags at the hotel and having a quick rest, we took off to find food and check out Chinatown. We gave up on Chinese food as everyone was tired and no one wanted to sit down and have a proper meal. Instead we had ice cream and bought Krispie Kreme donuts - a treat we haven't seen in 5 months.
On day one, due to the 3 hour time difference, we were up at 4am. By 6am we were ready to go. It was a beautiful sunny and warm morning so we took off through Hyde Park and the Botanical Gardens to the Harbor area. Along the way we viewed the "Sydney Life"
Hyde Park Inn
First Night in Sydney art exhibit in the park and spent a long time watching hundreds of bats hanging in the trees in the park. It was really spooky. That evening from our hotel balcony we could see them leave the park and fly out for the night. We hiked towards the water to Mrs. Macquarie's Chair, a beautiful spot overlooking the harbor. We took lots of pictures as you can see. At 9am we were first in line for the Opera House tour. It was an excellent tour that we all throughly enjoyed. We then had a coffee, walked around the ferry area, headed to the Vistor's Center in The Rocks section before deciding that we really needed to get to the beach. Walked back to the hotel to get our beach stuff, and grabed the closest bus to Bondi Beach. We had to buy beach towels at a shop when we arrived. Bondi Beach is a famous spot in Sydney - very touristy, too touristy for us so we walked along the cliffs towards Bronte Beach. Along the way we came across Tamarama Beach which was secluded and not too busy. Everyone loved the water and waves. We watched the surfers, built
sydney Sky Tower
7am on First Full Day sand castles, and enjoyed finally feeling some summer weather. After a few hours we walked to Bronte Beach to catch the bus back to our hotel. By this point it had been a 13 hour day and we were all exhausted. Gregg and Syd went and got take away Thai food. Later that night we read that Tamarama Beach, where we had been all afternoon, was one of the most dangerous beachs in the Sydney area due to rip tides... Good thing we didn't encounter any!
Day 2 - awoke to rain... this was fine since we had had such a great outdoor day on Friday. There are lots of wonderful musuems that we would only have been able to see if the weather wasn't great. First stop was Darling Harbor. Again we stopped at the Vistor's Center and determined that we should stop at the Mariner's Musuem while in the area. A great museum if you like boats and naval history which Gregg and the boys do. We then walked to The Barracks that was used in the mid 1800's to ealy 1900's for holding prisoners from the UK. The displays were interesting, the crimes often minimal, and punishment
always brutal. The kids enjoyed trying out the sleeping hammocks. Next stop... the Australia Museum. We had lunch in the cafe first and then headed to the exhibit on endangered species in Australia. It was very interesting as many of the endangered species are the most poisoneous ones as well. We all learned which spiders, snakes and marine life to be wary of while in Australia. As the day continued the weather was clearing up and Gregg really wanted to get out on the water. We needed to change hotels to our Mercure Airport Hotel for our early morning flight. We opted to take the train with all our luggage to the hotel before heading over to Manly. It was an adventure....The train was easy, but the hotel was a fair distance away. We schlepped our bags through the park to the hotel, had a quick change of clothes and shoes and headed back to the ferry terminal to get a ferry to Manly for dinner. We found a great Spanish restaurant with yummy Tapas. It was a shame we didn't get on the ferry until after the sun had gone down. We didn't get back to our hotel until
Bats Galore!
Botanic Gardens in Sydney after 11pm and we lost an hour due to Daylight Savings, and our flight to Brisbane left at 7am. Needless to say it was a short night, but a great end to our Sydney adventure.
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