Monday - free walk, lunch, harbour bridge, shopping and sky tower

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Today I decided to take advantage of the free walking guide and headed to Hyde Park in time for the 10.30am walk. Lily was our guide and she is from Russia but had been living in Sydney for many years. She decided to set the company up as she felt tourists were paying over the odds for tour guides. At the end of the tour you just have to give her what you think the tour is worth.



We started just after 10.30am and there was around 15 of us in total with a mixture of Australian and foreign visitors. We started off in Hyde park by the fountain and worked our way down to the bay via the tropical gardens which will soon be bursting into life again now that spring is here. Along the way various buildings and statues etc were pointed out



From there we walked to the city and then to the bay and then over to The Rocks which an area of the city originally settled in by the convicts brought over from England. After the tour had finished I had some lunch and then headed to the harbour bridge Nd the museum which is housed in one of the pillars. There is only one way to cross the bridge for the Rocks area so I followed the signs and climbed all the stairs then walked across the bridge taking some photos on the way and then went into,the museum.



Here is housed the history of the bridge,how it came to be and how long it took to build, size and dimensions, cost etc. You can then climb up the tower to get a view of Sydney. It was there that I decided not to do the bridge climb lol. I decided it was far too high and I would get cold feet or freeze part way up and it's expensive to do too, around $200!



After the museum I headed back into the city centre and did some window shooing, had a wander around and took time to appreciate the buskers. I then decided that I wanted to visit the Westfield tower which is the tallest building I. Sydney. I had my ticket voucher already sorted and decided to go up in time for sunset.



I found the entrance and headed up in the lift and then queued to get my ticket sorted. There seemed to be some dirtbag computer problem and my voucher wouldn't go through so after several attempts and intervention from the manager it was finally sorted. I them had to go through and watch a 4D film so was issued with standard 4D glasses and then hD to wait for the next showing of the film as there was already one in progress. What relevance it had to do with the tower I could not figure and I think it was just time washing and padding out the experience I had just paid for.



Finally I got into to the lift which runs up the middle of the tower and made it to the glass viewing deck. However I had just missed what looked like an amazing sunset as a round of applause was given. I was so disappointed and annoyed ant all the pre gagging that had gone on. So top tip if you go for sunset get there at least 2 hours early to make sure you have to endure the faff and get up there to secure a good position to take photos as it will be busy and people will be fighting for prime photo spots. I ended up staying up there for about 45 minutes taking photos and then headed back down and back to the hostel, stopping off at the supermarket on the way then chilled out and went to bed.





Xxx

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