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Published: February 14th 2010
Approaching Sydney
As we approach Darling Harbor early in the morning, the lighthouse shows us the way with a small sailboat out for a wild ride in the blustery winds. The city's downtown buildings are faintly appearing in the overcast coditions.Aussie, Aussie, Aussie-We arrived in Sydney, Australia early today under overcast, windy and rainy conditions. This ends the first segment of the cruise and begins the second. As we approach the Darling Harbor an early morning sailboat is almost sail in the water with the wind whipping. The Opera House and the Harbor Bridge are in sight! After the ship is docked in a familiar place right across from the Opera House, Annette decides to venture out into downtown for a bit of shopping and Doug stays behind to work on the blog. Darling Harbor, during the 1980’s was an area of derelict docks and has since been transformed into a major tourist attraction. And of course, the Harbor Bridge, which Doug climbed on the last cruise, was built in 1932 and is still the world’s widest bridge. It is affectionately known to Sydneysiders as the Coathanger. Glad we didn’t sign up to do the bridge this year as the weather would not have made it fun, but we could see the climbers giving it their best, even during the heavier rain.
We meet up again about noon, had lunch on board and prepared for our 4-hour ‘Sydney Sights, Opera
The Sydney Opera House
The world famous landmark early in the morning as we sail past it. House & Bondi Beach’ tour. Our first stop was the Gap at Watson’s Bay, which is the south head of the entrance to Sydney Harbor. The views would have been spectacular had it not been for the weather. We then stopped at the lighthouse near the point to take a photo. We then stopped at Mrs. Macquarie’s chair, an exposed sandstone rock cut in the shape of a bench by convicts in 1810 for the wife of Governor Macquarie. Folklore has it that she sat there and patiently watched for ships coming from England bringing mail. From here, we went on to Bondi Beach, which is Australia’s world-famous half-mile crescent shaped surfing beach. We finished up with a tour of the Sydney Opera House.
Back in 1957, Australian officials announced the winner of their Sydney Opera House contest. Jorn Utzon, a relative neophyte Danish architect who conceptualized a structure resembling a series of ship sails, or egg shells, depending on your vision. The shells alone went through 12 iterations before a final design was chosen. It was projected to cost approximately $26 million and take 3 years to build. The construction was so complex that it eventually cost over
Sydney
Taken as we are about to dock in Darling Harbor. $100 million and took 16 years to complete. The delays and cost overruns were creating such anger with the government officials, they put more pressure on Utzon and he walked away from his project to be replaced by his understudy Peter Hall. He would never return to his labor of love before his death in 2008. Although, he was later commissioned as an advisor to the completion, including the Utzon Room, he would never see it in person. His son also worked on the project.
The Sydney Opera House was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on October 20, 1973 and became an instant symbol of Australia. Today, over 2 million people attend performances in one of the many theaters each year. It has been identified as a UNESCO World Heritage site. La Traviotta was playing in the opera chamber tonight. On last years cruise we attended an evening of two Italian operas, both ending in the death of the lovers.
The tour was very informative! As we were exiting, walking past the ticket booths, we saw ‘BEACH BOYS SOLD OUT’.
After returning to the ship, we had to scurry and get ready for our 6:00 reservations
The City Wakes Up
An early ferry cruises past us on its way to the Circular Quay, where it will drop-off its commuters and pick up others. at Café Sydney in the old sandstone Customs House building not far from the ship. As it was raining, we took a cab. We had a very nice dinner and from our table we could look at our docked ship. The rain slowed and we decided to take the short walk back to the ship.
We arose on the 7th, had breakfast and as we departed the ship to catch the free city shuttle that took us to the Chinatown area in search of Paddy’s Market, members of the crew were doing a fire training exercise at the Deck 4 lounge. First we walked around the area near the pier, Sydney’s oldest village called “The Rocks”, which is a very nicely restored shopping area and small street market. The shuttle bus driver told us where to get off for Chinatown and we walked to the City Market. We strolled around the upper floors of shops and then found that Paddy’s Market was in the basement level. Oh My…a big street market basically inside. We then walked around George and Pitt Streets and visited the Queen Victoria Building, a beautiful multi-floor high-end shopping complex where we also had lunch. From
The Harbor Bridge
The Harbor Bridge in the early morning taken from the ship. there we strolled through The Strand, another nice shopping area. We walked back to the ship and our pedometers had clicked off about 5 ½ miles today. We departed Sydney right on time…10:00pm, but lo and behold, about an hour from dock the captain came on the loudspeaker and said because of a medical emergency that we had to return to Sydney. An older gentleman, Mr. Valdez, from Guatamela, who we travelled with on our last cruise had to be taken off the ship to the hospital. We got back under way after being at the dock about an hour.
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