Despite not feeling all that lively after the overnight greyhound journey we stored our bags at our hostel & headed out to get to grips with the city so that we didn't waste the day. We walked to the botanic gardens & headed for a spot called Mrs Macquarie's chair where you can get great views of the harbour bridge & opera house. This was really nice but unfortunately our visit coincided with workers lunch break & it seems that every one of these workers uses this as an opportunity to go running so we almost got mown down several times! We also explored Circular Quay where all the ferries go from & walked up to the Opera house, which looks different up close. That night we caught the bus to glebe to meet two friends Hannah & Lou who we used to work with, for dinner & a catch up.
They gave us a great tip for the next day so we caught the ferry to watsons bay, which gives great views of the city. The sun also came out over here, yay. We walked along the coastal path, which was lovely except its a popular suicide spot so lots of Samaritan type signs! From here we caught the bus to bondi beach which we really liked. I imagine it's heaving in better weather but we got to see it when it was really quiet. We then walked to bronte beach (I couldn't get Gary to do the full 3hr walk to Coogee!) then back for a drink in a restaurant called Iceberg overlooking bondi (great tip Lara C, thanks).
From here we bused back to the city & booked the harbour bridge climb for Friday, our last day in Sydney. We also looked around the rocks area, which is the earliest part of Sydney where the convicts arrived. It's really nice with cobbled streets & old buildings.
As it was our 7 year anniversary that day (Gary says he smashed a mirror that many years ago!) we had an amazing blow the budget dinner out that night including my favourite French martini cocktail, in Cockle bay wharf. This & Darling Harbour, which is next to it, are lovely. Imagine a nicer Port Solent or Gunwharf.
On day 3 we went up Sydney tower eye, which provides amazing views of the city & interesting details of its history. We walked across the free footpath of Sydney harbour bridge, where you could take great pics of the opera house. We also walked up the east pylon of the bridge, which provided even more brill pic opps (get ready for the mother of all slide shows on our return!) & lots of interesting details about the building of the bridge. There was no health or safety in those days so none of the workers were secured to the bridge & yet miraculously only 16 people died in the 7 years that it took to build & only 2 of these fell. The design of the bridge was from a company in Middlesborough, which beat 7 other tenders, who'd have thought it. They built both sides of the bridge & then lowered them until they met in the middle, which happened on my birth date in 1930. It took 8 days to lower & as the metal changes size slightly when it cools it was first joined up on the morning of the 19th August & then had to be joined again at 10pm that night. Both sides of the bridge have hinges to allow for the 180mm change in size of the bridge based on temp. It can withstand winds of 172kmph & even then it would only sway by a metre (perhaps the UK could learn something from this given recent events!) We followed this with tea & scones at an Irish tea room in the rocks, which was delish (Gary says it's scary how food has the ability to make me super happy!)
On our last day we did the Sydney harbour bridge climb at 9.30am. Handily the sun came out for this & was the best weather we'd had our whole time there. It's a 3 hour trip but an hour of this is getting kitted out in a beautiful baggy grey & blue onesie & doing some safety stuff. You even have to practice walking up & down stairs whilst you're clipped on. There are 14 people in a group & we were lucky to have a decent bunch of people including Steve & Hayley from Manchester, who were on their honeymoon. Our guide was called Bernie, who has been doing the tours for 14 years (they've only been running them for 15 years). He was hilarious but also pretty eccentric. Gary & I both thought he must have had an accident on the bridge at some stage! I thought it would be scary walking across the top but this was actually really nice. It was climbing up the steep stairs in the middle of the bridge that was more daunting. You got to see amazing views of Sydney & also hear some interesting stories about the people connected with the bridge. We joined the other mugs who bought some pics of ourselves up there to remember it by!
To make the most of the sun we caught the ferry to Manly when we'd finished the bridge climb. This is a popular place for people to live who work in Sydney. Over here we also walked round to another beach called Shelley beach. These were both pretty nice but I wasn't overawed by them. Perhaps it was because it still wasn't amazing weather or maybe my expectations were too high but I definitely think there are better beaches in Oz. We then returned to the city, got our bags & headed to the airport for our 8pm flight to Melbourne (this worked out cheaper then the greyhound & took just over an hour rather than 13 hours.)
Gary swung between disliking & liking Sydney. As you'd expect from a major city, the centre is busy with lots of traffic, people & noise. However, there are lots of areas outside of this which he really enjoyed like watsons bay, bondi & cockle bay wharf. There are lots of London & New York influences in the city itself & whilst I couldn't live here I really liked exploring it. It's an easy place to get your bearings in. I wouldn't have liked it to be too hot here but it's a shame we didn't have slightly nicer weather (we'll have to photoshop some sun in to our pics!) We were thinking of doing a trip to the blue mountains from here originally but we didn't really have enough time & people had said that the recent bush fires meant that it's not as nice as it could be. Our friend Hannah also said she prefers it in winter on a cold but clear day.
That's it for this post. Stay tuned for our adventures in Melbourne! Hope all's good, keep in touch with your news.
G & C x
