We landed in Sydney after a 15 hour flight from San Francisco on Qantas (22 hours of travel start to finish). We'd decided to spend a few days there to recover from jet lag and to acclimate to the time zone change (14 hours ahead of the East Coast). Because we crossed the International Date Line, we left Sunday and arrived Tuesday, skipping Monday entirely. The flights were uneventful, and we even managed some sleep on the SFO-SYD leg.
Sydney was our only Australian "repeat" from our 1987 visit. Then, it ended our trip. This time, it began it.
We arrived at our hotel in downtown Sydney around 8:30 am. Fortunately our room was available. We crashed for a few hours and then got up, determined to get immediately on an Australian schedule. After rising in early afternoon, we walked about 1.5 miles down to Sydney Harbour, passing through the beautiful Royal Botanical Gardens. From a viewpoint called Mrs. Maquarie's Chair, we had the classic view that we all associate with Australia - the Opera House with the Harbour Bridge in the background.
The Sydney Opera House is a unique structure with it's sail-like buildings and is recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage site. The building is fascinating from any angle and at all times of day.
The roof is made up of millions of tiles, some reflective and some not, giving the builing a slightly off-white hue and picking up the golden sunlight late in the day.
As sun set on our first evening, we watched a laser show project onto the roof honoring the Aboriginals and their canoe journeys navigating by the stars.
On our second morning in the city we took a guided tour of the Opera House, getting to see both its large spaces: a theater and a concert hall.
We learned that the Concert Hall is a self-enclosed wooden building sitting in, but not attached to, the Opera House's roof or walls.
Inside the Opera House structure the ribs of the building are exposed.
After our tour, we grabbed a quick lunch and then headed to The Rocks, the oldest portion of the city. Our ultimate destination was the offices of BridgeClimb Sydney...
...and our plan was to climb up to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This had been on Doug's bucket list for quite a long time and Jeannette, although nervous about heights (especially in wind, which the harbour has lots of), agreed to go along.
After a thorough safety briefing, we changed into coveralls and harnesses - we would be clipped to a wire on the bridge for the entire hike. Because the hike goes right above a busy highway, we had to remove all loose items (such as bracelets and cell phones) and store them in a locker. We had a short indoor practice climb, and were then on our way.
After hiking under the roadway for a while, we reached the main stone supports and climbed up four steep ladders to reach the upper span.
We rested frequently and took our time climbing up. The views were amazing, and our guide Henry took pictures which we could purchase after. We wore headsets and Henry gave us a running commentary about the bridge, its history, and the sights of Sydney Harbour.
We had about 15 minutes at the top of the bridge (500 feet above the level of the river) to enjoy the views, then crossed over to the other side and hiked back down. All told, the experience took about three hours.
Back in our civvies, Jeannette celebrated her survival.
The next day we took a city bus out to the ocean and the suburb of Coogee Beach.
Then we spent about three hours hiking six kilometers north along the Pacific coast on the Bondi to Coogee Walk. It was a beautiful day, and we passed several beaches and high sandstone cliffs as we wound our way up the coast. The walk featured Bubblers (aka water fountains), coffee and ice cream kiosks.
Bondi Beach is one of Sydney's prime sunning and surfing spots, and was quite busy even though it was midweek. We noticed the most Sydneysiders just throw down a towel - we saw very few chairs or umbrellas.
We had a delicious lunch in Bondi Beach, and then caught another city bus up to Watson's Bay. There we boarded a ferry for the ride back to Circular Quay, located right next to the Opera House.
Sydney has great public transport, including trams, buses, and ferries which are very inexpensive. You just tap with your phone or credit card when you enter and exit - super easy.
One other thing we enjoyed during our visit was seeing billboards throughout the city celebrating the Australian Para-Olympians in Paris.
On our last full day in the Sydney area, we took a small group tour out to the Blue Mountains, which sit an hour west of Sydney's downtown.
We were mostly Americans, along with a Mexican father and daughter and one German. Our driver/guide Amy was both knowledgeable and hilarious, and we learned a lot of Aussie slang and each got Aussie nicknames for the day (“Dougie” and “Jeannie”).
The Blue Mountains have rusted limestone cliffs and a blue haze cause by oil droplets from the many eucalyptus trees that evaporate into the air.
We stopped at a couple viewpoints and visited a waterfall in the national park area. The Three Sisters rock formations, seen from Echo Point, are sacred to the local aboriginals.
Then we drove to Scenic World, a commercial area in the park where we traveled down into the valley on the “world’s steepest train” (it was a very steep funicular)...
...walked through rainforest past the site of a former coal mine...
...took a cable car back up to the clifftop...
...and finally rode a gondola to a point high above the valley where we could see other waterfalls.
On our way back to Sydney we stopped a Featherdale Wildlife Park, where we were able to catch up-close-and-personal views of many native Australian mammals and birds.
On Saturday, September 7, we left our hotel early in the morning and flew across Australia from Sydney to Broome for the start of our first campervan adventure. More about that in the next post.
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