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Opera House
So excited! WE'RE IN SYDNEY! After arriving late into Sydney and catching a taxi to our hotel (Legend Has It, formerly known as Footprints), we collapsed. Jon was at first skeptical of the room, which was literally a bed and a microscopic bathroom. We both ended up agreeing that the room was better than the one in Cairns, however—it was extremely quiet and very dark, perfect for getting lots of good sleep. Additionally, if any parties were going on, we certainly didn’t hear them…
We got up early the next morning and went on a hop-on, hop-off bus tour of Sydney and Bondi. We planned where we wanted to get off and how to maximize our time for the bus. We got off at Paddy’s Markets in Chinatown (a great place to get cheap souvieniers!), The Rocks (where Sydney’s first European settlement was), Sydney Opera House (lots of nice photos!), the Botanic Gardens (beautiful flowers and good lunch), and the Mint and Barracks (which were closed because the government doesn’t run on the weekends, unbeknownst to us).
We then switched lines from the red Sydney Bus line to the blue Bondi Bus line, and swung out to explore Bondi. We ended up catching a
bus with the same driver who picked us up after the Botanic Gardens. It was fun, because this guy was a nutter. He said all kinds of crazy thing, and was hilarious (whether or not he meant to be… “Crossing the Sydney Harbor Bridge is free to residents of New South Wales… and we all know the best things in life are free. Or, at least, most of the best things in life are free. Stay right there, Sydney Harbor Bridge, just as you are… here… we… come!”).
We ended up stopping at Rose Bay Convent and the Gap park (our driver took a “Four minute stop to take photos here… Now it’s three minutes and fifty seconds.”), where we got some nice photos. We hopped off at Bondi Beach so that we could say that we’d been to the famous Bondi (and Jon could say he’d been to an Australian beach), and were chilly as we walked around the sandy beach between busses. We then hopped the bus again, heading back towards Sydney city.
We caught the red Sydney bus, only to get off once more at Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair, which afforded spectacular views of Sydney Harbor,
Harbor Bridge
Something exciting that we couldn't see was going on. Ft. Denison, the Bridge and Opera House, and Shark Island. It was getting windy, drippy and cold, but I got some decent sunset photos of the Bridge and Opera House (especially considering my camera can’t be controlled manually to get better sunset photos, any my ‘tripod’ was a convenient fence pole). We then got just about the last bus back to Central Station, the stop closest to our hotel. Guess who picked us up—our nutsy Bondi driver friend! ^___^ It made our evening.
On our way back to the hotel, we grabbed some Chinese food, which was fantastic (a lovely honey chicken—It was really, really good). We then proceeded to collapse after anther tiring day.
The next day we didn’t have to be up early for a tour, so we slept in a bit. Delightful! We then walked to Paddy’s Markets for some shopping (we didn’t do too much the day before, because we didn’t want to lug stuff around with us) and then walked to the Powerhouse Museum. It has a collection that covers science, technology, and more, including a cool display on silver (I can’t imagine having stuff that fancy to eat off of in my
house) and an interesting display on transportation, which included the Australian equivalent of America’s ‘Spruce Goose.’
After leaving the Powerhouse Museum, Jon and I walked back to the hotel and got supper at an Italian place up the street from our hotel. I again managed to make short work of my dinner (go me).
I then caught the shuttle bus from in front of our hotel back to the airport. I was catching a late flight back from Sydney to Brisbane, as I had class on Monday. That meant leaving Jon alone in Sydney for the next day—not that long to be alone, but enough to make us sad to be apart. I got back to Brisbane late (my flight was slightly delayed out of Sydney), got a taxi back to IH and collapsed. Whew!
I woke up the next day and went to classes, waiting for Jon to get back that evening. Jon went to the barracks museum and the mint museum that we had visited when they were closed. He walked there from the hotel (not too far, only about a 20 minute walk), and enjoyed looking around. I was excited to hear about his
adventure when he got home that night, and glad to have my boy back again.
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