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Published: April 12th 2011
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My friend Frankie had a couple of days off work this week so she took me out to see some of the sights of Sydney. First we got a bus to Circular Quay, which is the place where all the trains and buses and ferries stop. The train station has a really good view of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, much better than any views from most train stations I've been to. We then walked across the Harbour Bridge. It is very big and took us about half an hour to walk across (although it might have taken less time if Frankie hadn't stopped to take so many photos). From the bridge you get really good views of the harbour, the Opera House, the skyscrapers in the city and all the boats going past on the water below. You also get to see into the gardens of all the posh houses that are built alongside the harbour. We saw a sign for luxury penthouses for sale but there's no way we could afford one as they cost millions of dollars!
Across the bridge we walked alongside the water at Kirribilli and Milsons Point. We went past a big outdoor
swimming pool right next to the harbour. Sydney has lots of outdoor swimming pools because it is warmer than England most of the time so people can swim outside all year round. Next to the swimming pool is Luna Park which is a big theme park with fairground rides. We didn't have time to go on any rides but we walked through the mouth of the huge, scary clown face at the entrance to the park.
We then got a ferry to Darling Harbour. It was windy on the ferry but not bumpy so I didn't feel seasick. We had even more really good views of the bridge and Opera House. At Darling Harbour we saw the Welcome Wall which is a wall with the names and stories of people that have moved to Australia engraved on it. Australia was first colonised by Aboriginal people more than 40,000 years ago who came from South East Asia. In 1770 Australia became a British colony when Captain James Cook 'discovered' Australia. After that lots of people moved here from the UK, including lots of criminals sent here as punishment instead of going to prison in the UK! Since then there have
been big waves of immigration from lots of countries all around the world so Australia is very multicultural. At Darling Harbour we saw a replica of the ship HMS Endeavour which was Captain James Cook's research ship when he first sailed to Australia. It had lots of sails and ropes everywhere and looked tiny compared to the cruise ships people travel to Sydney in today.
The next day we walked around the Opera House up close and saw that the 'sails' of the building are made up of millions of small tiles the size of a person's hand. Some of the tiles are shiny so the roof glitters in the sunshine. The Opera House has several concert halls where opera, classical music, dance, comedy etc. are performed. From the Opera House we walked through the Botanical Gardens, which are a big, free park for people to relax in right next to the city centre. I liked the sign on the way in that said we could walk on the grass, not like the boring signs in the UK that tell you not to do fun things. The gardens have a sculpture exhibition on at the moment and you are
even allowed to climb and play on some of the sculptures! In the gardens we saw lots and lots of people jogging and doing exercise. Australians are very keen on a healthy, outdoor lifestyle and like to run around outside all the time.
In the Botanical Gardens we also saw some weird plants and wildlife. We saw some White Ibis, which are common birds in Australia that have really long beaks. They look scary but I haven't been pecked by them yet! They like to eat food that people have dropped, like seagulls and pigeons do in the UK (there are also seagulls and pigeons here in Australia). We also saw Cockatoos, which are cool white birds with yellow crests on their heads that are related to parrots. We saw some tropical trees like palm trees and banana plants that grow in Australia but not in the UK and also some common plants that were brought over from the UK when the first British people settled here, like roses.
p.s. Frankie says she would like to apologise, I got a bit wet the other day when it rained so I have damp hair now in some of
my photos and I am a bit squashed from being in her bag all the time!
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seth
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Lucky Flat Seth!
Love the pictures. Flat Seth is having the holiday of a lifetime.