We had a weather perfect amazing sail in this morning. This one just cannot be missed, even after going to bed at 12:30 last night. I was too excited to sleep so I was up at 5:30 and at the front bow by 5:45 just as the sun was displaying herself on the Head lands and the entry to Sydney Harbour. No exterior commentary this morning though, there is a new or shall I say, forcefully enforced law regarding external noise pollution from ships entering the Sydney Harbour, in short, no amplified music or commentary allowed. So we sailed in silently this morning - we missed Barbara's commentary as she always does such a great job in brining this sail in to life. Still beautiful, but silent.
We are docked at the new White Bay Cruise Terminal, which was also a very sad beginning to our time here, first time for us as in all this times we have been here before we were at Circular Quay. This terminal is about a half hour shuttle drive to Circular Quay, why, well again in short, if your ship can fit under the Harbour Bridge, this is where you go. Having said all this, HAL did do a great job in shuttling us back and forth, last shuttle was at 12:30AM.
Our day. The Ensemble Group tour was excellent as usual, Thank you Carla and WD World Travel. We headed out of town as the first tour off the ship and after a 45 minute drive we arrived at the Sydney Koala Park. After getting up close and personal with a Koala, we were able to view red and grey kangaroos, dingoes, wombats, emus and many other native birds. A very nice touch to this tour was the participation in planting a cluster of three Eucalyptus trees to help in the conservation of the Koalas. They even placed a commemorative plaque noting our tour's participation - very nice.
Lunch was very interesting in that it was to be at the Sydney Tower but they lost our reservation. Something about Ensemble canceling the reservation but not telling the local tour company (our guide) so after 30 minutes she rescheduled us to the Pavilion in the Park. Fine by us as we had been up the tower the last time we visited here but as you can imagine disappointing to many others. The Sydney Opera house followed and was great as usual (our third such tour here) and we were able to pick up our tickets for tonight's performance.
Back to the ship by 5 pm, quick shower and change and then back on the shuttle to Circular Quay and the Opera House. Sorry, but very limited photos are allowed in the Opera House. The Ballet of La Bayadere was amazing, our seats were eight rows from the front right in the center - the most incredible seats we have ever had, anywhere. A local single woman beside me asked if we were visitors and then asked how we were able to get these premium seats - she was a past season ticket holder and used to have seats in this area and told us that "these seats just don't become available" and "there is a waiting list for this area's seats". I told her my story about my account at the Opera House and she was still very surprised that we were where we where. She ended by telling us how lucky we were and to enjoy this experience and the performance - and yes we did. It was like they were dancing just for us, perfect music (we could see inside the orchestra pit) and were the perfect distance to see the entire stage as well as the facial expressions on each of the dancers - in short amazing.
Two picture uploads today, hope you enjoy...
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