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Published: August 29th 2010
Around Sydney
most beautiful city in the world? Gets my vote!There is nothing like playing tourist in your own city. We have had this pleasure a number of times in Sydney and always enjoy the experience of seeing it through the eyes of a visitor. Sure, we live about 90kms north-west of the city these days, but we did spend many years living in and around the city prior to this.
Our excuse to play tourist this time came courtesy of my distant cousins from France, Jean and Beatrice (plus their two German friends, Karl-Heinz and Lurshen … sorry no idea how to spell that one … I am open to corrections). They only had two days in Sydney so we did our best to give them a good impression of the city. The weather was a bit cool and at times overcast, but I think we managed to show them the positive side to our harbour city.
Our first day walking the city was very cool; in fact I really regretted leaving my beanie in the car. Freezing ears! You can tell from the photos that it was a bit nippy, especially around the harbour shoreline. Day two was a bit warmer; luckily winter in Sydney is not
too drastic.
The places and things which they seemed to find the most interesting were ….
•
The Rocks and Circular Quay - The harbour front area around the Rocks and Circular Quay, which has great views of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.
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The Botanical Gardens - The walk through a section of the Botanical Gardens, from the Opera House. They seemed surprised that the city development did not go all the way to the waterfront, which means that there is so much public land around the shoreline of the harbour.
•
St Mary’s Cathedral - the cathedral impressed them, with its lovely timber ceiling which to Jean and I looks to have been designed and built by a ship builder. How did Beatrice know the sandstone cathedral was built in the neo-gothic style? I have no idea about that stuff.
•
The Archibald Fountain - One of my personal favourites is not far from the cathedral, the Archibald fountain, simply because my mother and father met at that fountain on a blind date - how romantic!
•
Sydney Tower - They loved the view from Sydney Tower, and I must
admit I have not been up there in a long time myself and I found it breath taking as well.
•
Harbour Ferry Ride - A real winner with the visitors was the ferry ride on Sydney harbour, which took us from Darling Harbour, to Balmain then Milsons Point to get a view of the city from the north. It is only a short ride but gives a great view of the city from the water and then that northern perspective near Luna Park. Even on a chilly day it is still very impressive. The ferry is cheap and if you are with someone who knows the lay of the land it is as good as any guided harbour cruise.
•
Featherdale Wildlife Park - is about 45 minutes west of Sydney and well worth a visit. We take almost every visitor to see this park and love it each time. You can get up close with all those iconic Aussie animals - Koalas, Kangaroos, Wombats and many more. I think you can tell by the smiles on the visitors faces that it is a fun place to visit.
Other activities My sister and Uncle met
Around Sydney
where is that Opera House? us in Sydney on day two. We enjoyed lunch at pier 9, opposite the casino. We noticed the restaurant had an Alsace wine on their list, the price shocked us all a bit, especially Jean and Beatrice. The wine was from a village close to their home and was nothing special …. Price in Alsace about six euro, here = $65. We were all impressed with the food and even though we opted for a slightly less expensive Australian wine, it was lovely.
We also took a very short bushwalk just near our house to show Jean that we really do have 100kms of National Park as our playground across the road. I was really surprised how much Beatrice loved our dog Gus; she could not help holding him in her arms for some photos. It was obvious that Gus was soaking up the attention.
The family dinner that we tried to organise to welcome the visitors to our home did not work out exactly to plan. My brother was in Canada; my sister could not come on a Sunday evening because her kids had school the next day. Luckily my parents plus some good friends were able
to make it.
Naturally, I took Jean on a tour of our micro-mini-vineyard and winery. I have to admit to being a bit nervous about this. It did not help that I got a message from Jean’s son a few days before the visit which said …. “Robert, you better sharpen your vineyard knife because my father will want to inspect the work you have done in your garden”.
If you take a look back to a blog I wrote in August 2009, Jean-Frederic visited our place and gave some advice on our vines already. I was hoping that the work I had done following this had paid off. Jean is the man initially responsible for my little obsession with this micro-mini-vineyard project. So, some positive feedback would be great as I feel the pressure on my shoulders from many generations of my ancestors to produce a decent wine sometime in the future.
Jean seemed impressed with our backyard vineyard efforts. Although he did note that I had opted for spur pruning rather than cane pruning and a taller trellis system than that used in Alsace. Luckily, if my gamble on the pruning system does not pay
off it is easy enough to swap systems later. He appreciated our attempts at wine production so far, with positive comments about our 2009 white and encouraging us about our 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. He took a bottle of this home with him to have it tested in a wine lab to give me some tips on how I could improve it further. The first vintage from our own vines should be in 2011 - all going well that is.
(Oh, I got the lab report back from Jean today - 30/8/10 - see the photos for the result. The "AUS" is my wine, the "Pnn JEAN" is a comparison with Jean's 2009 Pinot Noir. He told me that a blend of 2/3 my cab sav with 1/3 his pinot was a good blend).
Thank heavens this whole vineyard thing is tongue in cheek!
The visit at our home and in Sydney seemed like a very happy end to Jean and Beatrice’s overall experience in Australia. We made some tentative travel plans with them for 2011. I think Jean has almost convinced my mother to travel with us to Alsace next time, together with my Uncle - a
Around Sydney
Sails? Shells? Opera House bientot.
RIP the Green Bus On a completely different note, Jean's green bus died just before they came to Australia, RIP the Renault Espace! Almost 600,000kms how amazing.
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