A Trip to Australia and New Zealand
Sydney
After two days of cool drizzly weather in Katoomba we returned to Sydney on the train without incident. Again a short walk to our hotel and a new room - this time with a full bath. Sydney was still hot during the day, but cooled off nicely in the early evenings (because of the hurricane to the north). For the next three days we continued our exploration of the city primarily on foot wandering through the central botanical gardens, visiting a number of good museums, taking the ferries to outlying parts of the city including Manly Beach, shopping in the central part of the city (the Queen Victoria Building is "smashing"), and visiting the Sydney Aquarium & Wildlife Park in Darling Harbor where we saw more unusual marine life, animals, birds, reptiles, and our first two "dugongs" (very similar to manatees). Every evening saw us fall into bed exhausted. Sadly, we never did manage to fit in a show at the Opera House. We probably should have done that if for no other reason than to satisfy the legions of people who ask us about it. It is just that tickets are very expensive and there were no shows while we were in town that we wanted to see. Maybe next time. Oh and we did not "walk the bridge" either. Again, very expensive and we had plenty of other hills to walk up while we were "doing" Sydney.
One evening we had an excellent steak dinner right on the wharf in Darling Harbor, but we usually ate in various small cafes in The Rocks. We searched out a number of atmospheric public houses where we consumed a wide variety of sumptuous local brews - often accompanied by a huge bowl of scrumptious french fries. For all of our coffee and deserts, we found an excellent outdoor cafe a block or two from our hotel and visited it regularly after dinner for cappuccino and some sort of chocolate pastry. Early on, we decided that we liked "our" Rocks as well as any neighborhood that we visited in all of Sydney - good food, historic pubs serving excellent beer, lots of atmosphere, beautiful views into the harbor, and an all-pervading sense of everything and everybody that had gone before. Even without wine with dinner "they" were there - the hardy pioneers, looming stone warehouses, transported felons, sailing ships at the dock, molasses barrels on the wharf, horses and carriages in the streets, merchants from the four corners of the world, gold seekers, painted ladies, sailors, and the feel of the eighteenth century in the air. And some evenings we even fell asleep listening to the haunting wail of an aboriginal street musician playing the traditional didgeridoo.
When it was time to leave Australia, we reluctantly checked out of the Russell, walked a couple of blocks to the train station and took an air conditioned train directly to the international airport. The flight home was miserable, but an hour or so shorter than the ordeal over had been because of a favorable tail wind.
