In which are amazed by how expensive everything is here.
We’d set the alarm for super early this morning so as not to miss sailing into Sydney. We’d been told that we’d be docking at around 6.30 am and that we’d be entering the harbour mouth approximately two hours before that. However, when we turned on the TV and tuned into the Bridge-Cam channel (forward facing webcam type setup) at about 5.30 am, there on the screen was a perfect shot of the famous opera house with the equally famous bridge behind it; we’d almost slept through the whole thing.
I threw on some clothes and rushed up on deck just as the ship was level with the mouth of Sydney Cove, with the opera house on the left (port side) and the bridge dead ahead. Soon tugs (and the ship’s bow thrusters) began to turn the ship so that she was lined up ready to reverse park into Circular Quay. She ended up moored port side (of course) totally dominating the quay with the harbour bridge in front and to the left, and the opera house to her right. The manoeuvre was really quite something to see and several people were standing on the quayside doing just that. Included in their number were friends of Adam and Corinne – who had been up since about four o’clock in the morning so as not to miss a thing – come to welcome these two new immigrants ‘home’.
Once safely berthed, Juli and I ate our last cruise breakfast and went with our hand luggage, to our assigned disembarkation station in the theatre, where we waited to be told which gangway to use to get off the ship, down to where our luggage was waiting for us. There couldn’t have been less fuss or formality; no one asked to look at our passports and no one was at all interested as we collected our bags from the pile waiting in the shed by the quayside. So it turned out that all that hard work scrubbing our tent to within an inch of its life plus any concerns we may have had about bringing wooden souvenirs into Australia were completely unnecessary. Ah well; don’t tell the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, AQIS.
Our hotel was, thanks to Juli’s research and planning, only a short walk from the quayside and within the famous Rocks area. Even so, due to the heat of the day, by the time we got there with all our heavy bags – especially the one with all our new ‘cruise’ clothes – I for one was sweat-soaked and exhausted.
Despite the fact that we had arrived well before regular check-in time, the receptionist found us a really nice room with level access to and from the lift; lots of the rooms were up and down short flights of steps in the quirky old building. The room itself looked out directly onto an office block across a side street, so after dumping our bags, we went up to the hotel’s roof garden, from where we could see the harbour bridge and most of Circular Quay. Not the ship though, as that was behind the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, which was directly across the street from us.
After a shower and a change of clothes, we went for a stroll back down to the quay, where we wandered over to the opera house then back round and under the bridge to Walsh Bay on the other side of The Rocks. Originally warehouses, the quayside buildings have now been converted into up-scale apartments, bars and restaurants. Since it was about lunchtime, we found a not too up-scale cafe and had a drink and a sandwich to share: Sydney, or at least the posh / tourist-y bits is really expensive. Don’t think we’ll be eating like we did on the ship.
Our walk took us to the Sydney Observatory, which is set on hill just behind The Rocks. Built in 1858, it is Australia’s oldest observatory and was built not only to study the stars, but also for meteorology and to provide accurate time-keeping for Sydney’s post office and mariners. Every day at one o’clock a large metal ball is raised to the top of the poll on which it slides and is dropped at exactly 1.00 pm. Having said that, as luck would have it, we were there in plenty of time to see it fall and it didn’t. That may have been due to daylight saving, which they have at this time of year in New South Wales, but no one at the observatory on duty then could tell us. Hey ho. Nevertheless, we decided to book an evening tour for the next night, when (clouds permitting) we be given a tour of both the observatory and the night sky.
After a rest back at our hotel, we ventured out again in search of cheap food. No easy task in the area around the quay, but we did eventually find a Hungry Jacks, which is Australia’s equivalent of Burger King. [Apparently, when the franchise first came to Australia, the trademark Burger king was already registered by a restaurant in Adelaide.]
I spent the rest of the afternoon blogging back at the hotel while Juli made a return visit to the opera house
and spent some time in the art museum. When she got back, we went out for dinner and found a sweet little Italian restaurant, where we shared a very tasty and reasonably priced pizza and a side salad.
Back at the hotel, I continued blogging while Juli turned on the TV to see what Australian’s watch, which turns out to be quite a few of the same (British) shows we watch at home, so when I’d finished, she e-mailed and uploaded her photos. By the way, we had to pay an extra $5 on top of the room rate for a Wi-Fi code that last just 24 hours to be able to do that. Seems like a small amount maybe, but everywhere else we’ve stayed, even in the cheapest of hostels, we’ve had free Wi-Fi as matter of course. Just another example of how expensive Sydney is I guess.
So that was our first visit to Sydney and the start of our Australian adventure. As I mentioned before, we’ll be returning to Sydney at the end of our loop down under, but next stop is south Queensland and north New South Wales, where we’ll be spending Christmas and the New Year with Juli’s family.
Next post: the journey north from Sydney to Brisbane.
TTFN - N
PS: Happy New Year, everone; all the best for twenty-thirteen.
Day 176 (arriving in Sydney)
We’d set the alarm for super early this morning so as not to miss sailing into Sydney. We’d been told that we’d be docking at around 6.30 am and that we’d be entering the harbour mouth approximately two hours before that. However, when we turned on the TV and tuned into the Bridge-Cam channel (forward facing webcam type setup) at about 5.30 am, there on the screen was a perfect shot of the famous opera house with the equally famous bridge behind it; we’d almost slept through the whole thing.I threw on some clothes and rushed up on deck just as the ship was level with the mouth of Sydney Cove, with the opera house on the left (port side) and the bridge dead ahead. Soon tugs (and the ship’s bow thrusters) began to turn the ship so that she was lined up ready to reverse park into Circular Quay. She ended up moored port side (of course) totally dominating the quay with the harbour bridge in front and to the left, and the opera house to her right. The manoeuvre was really quite something to see and several people were standing on the quayside doing just that. Included in their number were friends of Adam and Corinne – who had been up since about four o’clock in the morning so as not to miss a thing – come to welcome these two new immigrants ‘home’.
Once safely berthed, Juli and I ate our last cruise breakfast and went with our hand luggage, to our assigned disembarkation station in the theatre, where we waited to be told which gangway to use to get off the ship, down to where our luggage was waiting for us. There couldn’t have been less fuss or formality; no one asked to look at our passports and no one was at all interested as we collected our bags from the pile waiting in the shed by the quayside. So it turned out that all that hard work scrubbing our tent to within an inch of its life plus any concerns we may have had about bringing wooden souvenirs into Australia were completely unnecessary. Ah well; don’t tell the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, AQIS.
Our hotel was, thanks to Juli’s research and planning, only a short walk from the quayside and within the famous Rocks area. Even so, due to the heat of the day, by the time we got there with all our heavy bags – especially the one with all our new ‘cruise’ clothes – I for one was sweat-soaked and exhausted.
Despite the fact that we had arrived well before regular check-in time, the receptionist found us a really nice room with level access to and from the lift; lots of the rooms were up and down short flights of steps in the quirky old building. The room itself looked out directly onto an office block across a side street, so after dumping our bags, we went up to the hotel’s roof garden, from where we could see the harbour bridge and most of Circular Quay. Not the ship though, as that was behind the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, which was directly across the street from us.
After a shower and a change of clothes, we went for a stroll back down to the quay, where we wandered over to the opera house then back round and under the bridge to Walsh Bay on the other side of The Rocks. Originally warehouses, the quayside buildings have now been converted into up-scale apartments, bars and restaurants. Since it was about lunchtime, we found a not too up-scale cafe and had a drink and a sandwich to share: Sydney, or at least the posh / tourist-y bits is really expensive. Don’t think we’ll be eating like we did on the ship.
Our walk took us to the Sydney Observatory, which is set on hill just behind The Rocks. Built in 1858, it is Australia’s oldest observatory and was built not only to study the stars, but also for meteorology and to provide accurate time-keeping for Sydney’s post office and mariners. Every day at one o’clock a large metal ball is raised to the top of the poll on which it slides and is dropped at exactly 1.00 pm. Having said that, as luck would have it, we were there in plenty of time to see it fall and it didn’t. That may have been due to daylight saving, which they have at this time of year in New South Wales, but no one at the observatory on duty then could tell us. Hey ho. Nevertheless, we decided to book an evening tour for the next night, when (clouds permitting) we be given a tour of both the observatory and the night sky.
After a rest back at our hotel, we ventured out again in search of cheap food. No easy task in the area around the quay, but we did eventually find a Hungry Jacks, which is Australia’s equivalent of Burger King. [Apparently, when the franchise first came to Australia, the trademark Burger king was already registered by a restaurant in Adelaide.]
***
Today, after a good but early breakfast precipitated by a particularly noisy power-tool being started up in our vicinity at around 05:45, we walked up George Street to the railway station to book a ticket up to Brisbane and to enquire about long-term left luggage. We had hoped that we’d be able to leave our cruise and suvee bags at the hotel, with whom we’ll be staying again when we return to Sydney in March. Unfortunately, they just don’t have the room. Neither, we discovered, does the railway station have left luggage facilities, nor the coach station round the corner. They did, however, point us in the direction of a backpackers travel agent called Wanderers Travel who do, but for $100 dollars per month, per bag.
We didn’t have much luck with the train ticket either. We needed to get to Robina – a town an hour south of Brisbane, near to Juli’s Aunt Connie, from where she will collect us – but it seems the only way to get to there by train is either to get an overnight sleeper train up to Brisbane (arriving super early) followed by a suburban service back down to Robina, or a day time train half way up to a town called Cassino then take a bus the rest of the way, which we didn’t fancy so much. We seriously doubted the information we were getting from the ticket sales agent who was only able to advise on New South Wales trains (our journey was trans-state) so decided to book neither and do our own research back at the hotel.
Back at the hotel, we had a rest from the heat of the day before venturing out again for some food before our tour of the Observatory later that evening. We chose fish and chips from a busy stall on the quay side and took them to a park bench nearby. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before we were mobbed by some very cheeky gulls, who literally grabbed the food from our fingers. After a minute or two of this, and at the suggestion of a park ranger, we made a tactical withdrawal to another bench away from the quay.
We got to the Observatory very early so sat on another bench nearby. From our vantage point at the top of Observatory Hill, we watched ships in the other bays, harbours and quays that we could see, including a second cruise ship almost as big as the one we’d got off the day before. We also had an excellent view of the constant stream of aeroplanes coming into Sydney’s airport, just to the south of us in Botany Bay.
Soon it was time for our tour, which started by looking at some of the historical artefacts they have there followed by a climb up into their two telescope domes: one holding the oldest working telescope in Australia from 1874 and the other housing a modern, computer controlled, mirrored telescope. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy for stargazing, so instead the guide talked to us about the instruments and trained them on some land-based objects we could see.
After that we were shown some 3D movies they had on various subjects, including how big is big in astrological terms, and surviving the climatic extremes in our solar system. Finally, to make up for not seeing any stars, we were taken into a living room-sized planetarium, where we sat on beanbags under a giant umbrella onto the inside of which were projected the constellation of the southern hemisphere including the Southern Cross, which we hope to see in the dark skies of the Nullarbor Plain when we cross it in February.
***
The next morning, having checked online and discovered not only that the information we’d been given at the train station was correct, but also that we couldn’t make the journey any cheaper any other way, we went back to buy discounted tickets for the overnight train in economy seats. On the plus side though, while we were in the area, we went back to Wanderers Travel, where Juli spoke to the manager and managed to negotiate a significant discount on the previously quoted price, so that was sorted too.
On the way back down George Street, we pooped into the Queen Victoria Building, now refurbished as an elegant shopping arcade, where they have this amazing clock/calendar that fills the space above the central atrium.
I spent the rest of the afternoon blogging back at the hotel while Juli made a return visit to the opera house
and spent some time in the art museum. When she got back, we went out for dinner and found a sweet little Italian restaurant, where we shared a very tasty and reasonably priced pizza and a side salad.
Back at the hotel, I continued blogging while Juli turned on the TV to see what Australian’s watch, which turns out to be quite a few of the same (British) shows we watch at home, so when I’d finished, she e-mailed and uploaded her photos. By the way, we had to pay an extra $5 on top of the room rate for a Wi-Fi code that last just 24 hours to be able to do that. Seems like a small amount maybe, but everywhere else we’ve stayed, even in the cheapest of hostels, we’ve had free Wi-Fi as matter of course. Just another example of how expensive Sydney is I guess.
***
After being bitten to buggery by mosquitoes in the night and a bit of a late start, we spent the day in and around the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. We walked there via Circular Quay, where a third large cruise ship was berthed where ours was, round past the opera house and round again to Mrs Macquaries Chair, a favourite lookout point of the wife of Governor Macquarie, who founded the gardens in 1816. The 30 hectare site comprises several themed gardens and arboretums as well as statuary, lawns and ponds. It also holds Government House, which has been home to Governors since 1846 and was designed by the same architect that built Buckingham palace. Near by is the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, which is housed in what used to be Government House’s stables. We had a lovely time just walking around and enjoying this marvellous green space, popular – at least on the day we were there – with wedding photographers.
Later, after lunch at Hungry Jacks again, a rest back at the hotel, a bit of re-packing and some time spent uploading photos from the day, e-mailing and looking up e-books on coping with the menopause, we went out again to have dinner in Woolworth’s restaurant – yes: they still have Woolworths here, and yes: it has a restaurant. The food was at least cheap but not, unsurprisingly I suppose, that great.
Back at the hotel, I uploaded my few photos, e-mailed and blogged a bit, while Juli started reading Jenni Murray’s book, Is It Me Or Is It Hot In Here? on her Kindle. She tells me it was good, but spends quite a lot of time telling the reader how marvellous HRT is. Unfortunately, because of her particular cancer, Juli can’t take HRT, so if anyone knows of a really good book on how to cope with the Menopause without HRT, do write and let us know.
So that was our first visit to Sydney and the start of our Australian adventure. As I mentioned before, we’ll be returning to Sydney at the end of our loop down under, but next stop is south Queensland and north New South Wales, where we’ll be spending Christmas and the New Year with Juli’s family.
Next post: the journey north from Sydney to Brisbane.
TTFN - N
PS: Happy New Year, everone; all the best for twenty-thirteen.
