Sydney, ah Sydney, we love Sydney and all that it offers. Sydney, with its 50,000 years of Aboriginal history through to the changes brought by the delivery of the British convicts in 1788. Sydney is Australia’s largest, oldest and most cosmopolitan city. Brimming with history, nature, culture, art, fashion, cuisine and design, Sydney is set next to miles of ocean coastline, sandy surf beaches and enjoys the reputation of being one of the world’s most beautiful and livable cities. For those who have followed our blog in the past know how much we enjoy this amazing city and for any further commentary on this city I encourage you to click back to many of our past postings. In fact stole this one from our visit back in 2014 - the last time we were here.
We have visited here several times and very happy to be back here once again. Of course I could not miss the sail in this morning, although a bit dark this time around - the sun only peaked out as we rounded the corner to see the Harbour Bridge and the famous Opera House, which was very nice as the first licks of the sun hit the more than one million, self cleaning panels. We are docked at the White Bay Cruise Terminal, because we are the size of ship that can sail under the bridge, ships unable to fit under get the convented spot at Circular Quay. With that said there was one ship at anchor in the harbour as there was only one spot at Circular Quay for cruise ships. I digress, once our lines were fixed we all presented ourselves for immigration (face to face with passport), once through, free to get on with your day. This was a much better process than in the past when the immigration came onto the ship and everyone had to present themselves before anyone could get off the ship - there were always some people who just do not think this applies to them and therefore holding everyone up.
HAL did a good job of shuttling us to Darling Harbour, wow has this place changed in five years - just keeps getting better and better. If you recall the Yacht docked in Papeete (Tahiti) belonging to James Packer, well the new big tall building in one of the pictures belongs to him, a casino, I believe he also owns the three rounded buildings next door, hmmm, I guess if you got it flaunt it… For us we headed into the city and towards Circular Quay a good 25 minute walk away, to one of our favourite weekend places, The Rocks, they hold a great street market on both Saturday and Sunday. It is a great place to wander around and pick up a few things, like a new Kangaroo Australian Hat, why not, I didn’t have one of these and for some reason all of a sudden needed one, lol. From here we looped around Circular Quay and cut back through town and through Hyde Park to see the Anzac Monument before heading down to the popular Paddy’s Market - great place for just about everything. We did quickly finish our loop back to Darling Harbour to get back to the ship for a bit of a rest, shower and early dinner and head back to the shuttle and Darling Harbour and then over to the Sydney Opera House for tonight’s performance of Carmen. WOW, fantastic new twist on an old opera. Great performance, great sets and backgrounds and of course amazing building. After the performance I was looking forward to taking some great night shots of the building as it is always lit up so well but as you can see from the pics, no photos tonight, insert sad emoji. When we got out of our section, I thought, wow, what a strange time to clean the windows as what looked like a water fall was coming off the peaks before I realized it was absolutely pouring buckets. So yeah, no pics… we had to route ourselves undercover as far as possible to Circular Quay to get a cab, this is where being here a few times comes in handy, there is a great under concourse walkway that takes you almost all the way to the Quay. A quick cab negotiation and we were back to the ship in minutes and just in time for the late snack. A great day and a great night in Sydney, we look forward to tomorrow. A few pics of our day, hope you enjoy… BTW, all in today was over 16 kilometres of walking (over 22,000 steps), no wonder our legs where tired.
Quote of the day - “Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you.” - Voltare
No comments:
Post a Comment