Around the World (again) Sydney

Sydney Monday 12 Nov

Birte took us for a final drive around the hills above Nelson before finally dropping down to Nelson Airport for onward dispatch to Sydney via Christchurch. Nelson is a nice old fashioned airport, the type that you walk out to your turboprop 50 seater aircraft. It was a smooth flight over the Southern Alps and Mount Cook, it clouded a little but on approach the clouds parted to enable a nice view of the town.

We had a few hours wait at the airport for our connecting flight, but we filled this in with a bit of eating and drinking. The flight across the Tasman Sea with Air New Zealand was uneventful until the last hour when we had a bit of turbulence, nothing to get excited about, though some always do.

We landed in a damp and not too hot Sydney on time, got our bags, hopped on the train that dropped us off almost at our Hotel door on York street, The Wynyard Travel Lodge, central and handy for most things.

We got ourselves unpacked got our rain gear on and legged it down to China Town for a spot of supper. We walked around looking at menus until we settled on a small one full of Orientals Linda had a curried chicken noodle soup. I had a spiced chicken dumpling soup with loads of veg and noodles. The rain was still falling quite steadily when we had finished our meal so we decided to get a taxi back and watch a bit of TV (Big Bang Theory).

Tuesday

It was still raining, but holiday is holiday and you don’t waste time. We headed to a nice precinct and found  a nice covered but in the open place to have a spot of breakfast. I do believe that very few of Sydney-siders eat breakfast at home as at this time in the morning all of the little cafes and snack bars are doing a roaring trade either with sit down or as you go. All in their business suits (they still wear ties to the office)
My bacon and egg sandwich and Lindas toasted something or other washed down with a flat white:

And the bird got nothing at all!

Breakfast over we decided to go to the Museum of Sydney as we hoped it would be fair when we came out. This is a very nice small museum that explains the arrival of the first fleet and the development of Sydney thereafter. Very interesting and when we came out the rain had stopped, we headed for the Botanical Gardens at the end of Bridge street, it was now starting to warm up and the birdlife was enjoying picking up the worms and grubs from the bushes and lawns. We walked through the gardens (the site of the original farm that fed the early settlers, troops and convicts alike).
 

Linda noticed the smell of thyme filling the air, we walked up a few steps into a wonderful Herb garden, full of all the normal herbs and a few more!

We walked along the path passing the first Governors residence with fort Denison in the middle of the harbour.

 

 

We arrived at the Opera House, this Iconic building who’s architect Jorn Utzon a little known Dane won an international competition for the design in 1957. It is built at Bennelong point, this area is named after one of the Aborigines befriended by Arthur Philips the first Governor of the Penal Colony.

 

 Beard coming along quite nicely

We took the photographs of the Opera House, the Bridge and Circular quay. We then walked around circular quay to the rocks, popped into the Tourist Information Office and booked our means of transport from Wednesday that would be our means of transport up to the Sunshine coast. We had hoped to hire a small camper, but they could only offer us a very large one, or a 4x4 and Linda certainly didn’t fancy driving one of those.

I caught this rather pretentious pie shop advert in the rocks, now I reckon a pie is a pie what do you think?

We then went back to Circular Quay and got on a hop on hop off tour bus, these are great for getting to know the city and it takes in all of the tourist spots.

 

 

 

 

A renovated finger wharf

 With a boat park not a car park

 

 

 St Mary's

We hopped off at the stop for the Fish Market and walking the short  to the market passing on the way this address (this is one for Birte and Steve).

The Sydney Fish Market is the second largest in the world (I believe only trumped by Tokio), it must be seen to be believed.

 Mine all mine!

We had arrived just as most of the stalls and food outlets were shutting up shop, but this had the advantage of knock down prices, so I got my dozen local rock oysters for $A 15,- the same cost as Linda’s mixed box of sea food all cooked in a crisp tempura batter.

The tempura box included soft shelled crab, goose barnacles, mussels, fish filets, prawns everything wonderfully cooked.

We then walked back to the bus stop to complete the round trip, via Darling Harbour, unde the bridge with its climbers and hopping off at the nearest stop to our Hotel.

 

 

It had been a nice, but strenuous day, so we just went our to our room and watched a bit of tele.
Night, night.

Wednesday

Our last full day in Sydney and the sun came out with a vengeance, blue skies, warm (rising to hot) and it looked as if it was a perfect day, we first decided we would go the Australian Museum, this is well worth a visit and in a wonderful old building (for Australian standards).

Before getting to the Museum we popped into the ANZAC memorial, as it was 11 O’clock we stayed for the short memorial service at the tomb of the unknown warrior, all very moving.

 

 

 

Lest we forget!

After the Museum we walked back through the Hyde Park lots of people out enjoying the spring sun, even one chap up on a pedestal, his namesake will we hope be reeking havoc amongst the natives of today.

 

There was as always a few live entertainers and today the Sydney Opera House was shining in all her glory

 

 

We then walked down to Circular Quay as Linda wanted to do a harbour tour (I have done it quite a few times in the past) and I was off to the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art to spend a couple of hours ensconced in modern art. Not everyone’s cuppa I know, but I like it a lot, There was an interesting young artists display on, very good pieces. Yoko Ono was having a display on but that didn’t open until the next day. .

 

I went up top to the roof top café, had a flat white a scone and took in the views and the sun.

It was getting near the time when Linda would be returning from her “cruise”. I stood on the side lines and watched the line throwing and missing antics.

We then got the train one stop back to the hotel and got cleaned up and rested as we had said we would go down to one of the two Japanese restaurants below the hotel.

We sat ourselves down and along came a nice, would you believe it? A Japanese waitress. We decided on the Bento Boxes, I chose the Sashimi one with spiced wagu beef and Linda had the spiced tempura prawns also with spiced wagu beef. But first we had a miso soup with tofu and Chinese greens.

 

 

 

 

Everything was beautifully cooked, fresh and tasty, the vegetables crisp and also perfectly cooked. We drank fragrant green tea with the meal a fitting end to a wonderful few days in Sydney.

Tomorrow it was pick up the car and head off towards Hunter Valley .

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