Sid's place 1
Trip Start
Jan 04, 2010
1
14
43
Trip End
Apr 22, 2010
Sydney Harbour National Park, New South Wales, Australia
Sunday, February 21, 2010
It is 6:00am and we are approaching Sydney Harbour. Dawn is just breaking. Is the early morning start to the day going to be worth the effort? The city is still lit from the night before and we can see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge looming before us. What a wonderful sight they are. Yes-from where we are standing the early start has been well worthwhile.
By 7:00 am ship has docked. It almost seems that we are berthed in the heart of the city. We are about 300 metres from the Opera House across the bay as the crow flies and on our starboard side we have a clear and uninterrupted view of Sydney Harbour Bridge.Later that day we took a tour around the Opera House, which has two main venues- a Concert Hall and a smaller hall mostly devoted to opera. There are a number of even smaller venues for plays, conferences and so forth. Whilst the building is a truly remarkable piece of architecture and engineering the interior although itself impressive did have a slightly utility feeling to it-in common with most modern theatre venues. However it was well worth the visit.
Following this we headed to Bondi Beach, via a tour around the city sites. This is a very impressive beach with soft golden sands-clean-with impressive breakers, making it ideal conditions for surfers. The beach was not very crowded- no doubt because it was Friday but on holidays and weekends anything up to 10000 visitors would not be unusual.
Having wet our feet, we returned to the ship where we met up with some of Ray's family Australian bloodline. Four generations in fact- Peg, Jaki, Kimberly and Leirisa. They had driven all the way down from Newcastle -which was very good of them- and together we enjoyed a very pleasant lunch. It was nice to meet with them –and we hope they enjoyed meeting us also.
Later in the evening, when the weather had cooled down we took a stroll around the district surrounding the harbour. The area was absolutely buzzing with young people enjoying their start to the weekend. There are dozens of restaurants about with an almost infinite variety of culinary delights available. We had already eaten so we went along to a Moonlight Market-open air- where in street entertainment was laid on for evening revellers and shoppers.
The happy hours here are remarkable with a terrifically good and warm atmosphere. The only thing is where are all the people over 40- the whole city population appears to be quite young.
Comments
Hi Ray and Sue
We enjoyed meeting you too. Was saying on the drive home how nice and relaxing it was. The over 40s in Sydney do exist......just not sure where they are :-)