Last 2 days in Sydney

---

Geo: -33.8671, 151.207

For our last 2 days in Oz, we checked into the Shangri-La hotel, which is in the Rocks area so conveniently placed for the main sights. We were given an upgrade to an opera house view on the 8th floor, lovely large room and bathroom. Helen had the harbour view room which didn't have the same spectacular view but she did have a huge double bed all to herself. We walked down to Circular Quay and had lunch at Doyle's, which is close to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We had been there before and enjoyed it- not cheap, but a seafood starter each , and one side of garlic bread and chips was actually enough. The main courses looked huge. After lunch we took a walk through the Botanical Gardens just past the Opera House. On a hot sunny day it is a good place to walk through and is one way to reach the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The permanent collection here contains the usual landscapes by Australian artists and some lovely aboriginal art as well as a few European paintings by Rubens, Van Gogh etc. There is an Asian section which we didn't have time to do but instead we went to Art Express 2012. This is an annual exhibition of art done by high school kids in their teens and was a formidable amount of talented work. Wonderful to see such work being done by the artists of tomorrow. The end of our tour was a glass of wine sitting outside in the gallery cafe.

For the evening we took a taxi to the bustling area of Chinatown and had an excellent meal at the 9 Dragons Restaurant. The portions were huge so 2 people could share one dish. Helen took our leftovers as a take away snack!.

The following morning we tried the breakfast buffet in the hotel. $44 dollars for the full Australian, which Stefan found indifferent. Tiz went al a carte and for less than half the price had a large plate of fruit, tea and juice.

Helen then drove us to the Northern beaches in particular to Carool Bay, where her friend Theo arrived at the jetty in a "tinny" and sailed us over to a lovely sailing boat owned by Theo, his brother Carly and their Dad. On the boat were Carly and Theo's wife Simone. It has 2 huge red sails but today we were under motor power and sailed off to a calm area of the bay where we proceeded to consume a superb lunch of dips, prawns and freshly cooked crab, which Carly had caught that day. Lunch was washed down with the wine and champagne which we had brought aboard. Once again we were fortunate with the weather and the sun shone for us as we pootled around the bay. Clambering off the boat was more of a challenge for Tiz than getting on for some reason.

Back at the hotel we met up with a friend we had met on a previous cruise. Sadly Helen had to get back home as she was going to be up early for work the following day. We went with Bob back to Chinatown and had a meal sitting outside at the New Tai Yuen restaurant. Unfortunately the meal was not as good as the one the night before but it was good to catch up with Bob.

We decided to skip breakfast the following morning and checked out at 11am. At least we were able to have a cup of tea in the room. The Concierge, Jason, was very good at organising our pick up to the airport as Emirates didn't have the booking and it took him some time to get through to them. Leaving our luggage with the porter we walked down to the Rocks Market which is on every Saturday and Sunday. We both agreed that this time the stalls were more extensive and more interesting than on previous occasions. It is impossible not to buy something as a souvenir. Having now built up a healthy appetite we had a meal close to the market at Caminetto's on Playfair Street. We had the oysters and prosciutto with melon as starters and then fish & chips and Fettucini al Grancio as mains. All absolutely delicious. The house white comes in a carafe and is very palatable. As we were in no hurry we ordered our mains after we had eaten our starters to ensure we weren't rushed. After lunch we did more strolling round the market and then sat outside Tooheys bar, which is a great place to people watch.

All too soon we were being whisked away to the airport for the flight to Bangkok, where we spent 2 further days doing nothing particular at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. We had thoroughly enjoyed our Aussie experience all made more delightful thanks to the lovely friends of Helen.

---