Blogs from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 15

Monday March 6, 2017 A different but beautiful day. After a couple of dreary days, today turned out to be a blockbuster day. Beautiful wheathe with lots of activity. It started this morning with a walking excursion to the most original part of town called "the rocks". This was the first place where prisoners settled in 1788. A place that has been preserved in its original setting not due to government intervention, but a a result of actions of the local people and workers unions to maintain the place as a historic site. Very well done! Lots of explanations and stories on how Sydney, and by the same token all but one of the other major cities inAustralia were founded Difficult to understand that most of the Australian initial inhabitants, apart from the aborigines, were convicts. ... read more

Saturday March 4 2017 Our first full day in Sydney. Let me give it to you as it is: jetlag is a bitch. We were awake around 3.00 AM, but fortunately we were able to drift off a bit, but around 7.00 AM, that was it. Great breakfast here at the hotel. After breakfast we spent some time in the business lounge where we met a friendly Australian couple that gave us some tips on things to do, amongst them, go and see the Mardi Gras Gay Parade. A major happening here. As it turns out Sydney, after San Francisco has the largest gay community of any city in the world. As you would find for these type of parades, people in favor others against. A major political figure of a Christian Democrat party here is ... read more

For the first time we travelled to Australia via China...Shanghai. Mostly to break up the long flights but also to get a brief feel for the possibility of a more extensive tour in the future. The 15 hour flight was painful but getting a good night's sleep then having a personalized tour of the city made up for it. Then on to Sydney for a 5 week family and friends visit and celebration of Mum's 97th birthday. To break up our long stay in Oz we planned a month long tour of the South Island of New Zealand. The first 2 weeks were shared with rellies Carl and Jody, the second, just the 2 of us. Click on the first photo to open.... read more

" The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands" - Sir Richard Burton. Any journey anywhere has a starting point and a mode of getting there. For far away lands this invariably involves flying. So.. with a curious mind I "Googled" a bit to try and understand just what this flying thing is all about. Consider this: every single day of the year in 2014 there were 102,465 flights around the globe transporting 3 billion passengers in that year alone. Believe it or not a bunch of people in an organisation by name of "Air Transaction Aviation Group" did the sums and continue to do so. Staggering numbers indeed! So when the Elliott's get boarding passes for Cathay Pacific flight CX 748 to Hong Kong, it is a piddly drop ... read more

Today we had a free day in Sydney. I spent the day taking a wonderful walking tour with a nice couple from New York. We started in a beautiful park seeing some of the unusual plants found here in Australia. We then visited St. Mary’s Catholic Cathedral, begun in 1821 and the largest church in the Southern Hemisphere. We entered to wonderful sounds of a girls choir and string group as they practiced together. Very special sound in this beautiful place. We then visited the Sydney Tower Eye, with a circular viewing platform 1000 feet above the city. It was a beautiful, panoramic view of Sydney. We finally visited Darling Harbor, sitting in a few cafe’s and just taking in the view. A very beautiful place. In the evening we had our final dinner in Australia ... read more