After an uneventful flight to Australia, here we are in Sydney!
Our first day dawned bright and clear so we decided to head out to the Opera House (since that was the MAJOR item on our sightseeing list for Sydney). We hopped on the light rail line and took a carriage all the way to the Central Station (all 4 stops, which took about 10 min). We then changed to the regular rail service and used the City Circular route to get up to Circular Quay (pronounced "key" here in Oz). We saw the Opera House (http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/sydney-opera-house) while still on board the train, so we hurried off and found a booth to buy tickets for a tour (http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/homepage.aspx). We had to wait only about 20 minutes before Leigh took charge of us. The tour lasted about an hour and we went into 3 of the performing halls. Two were empty, so we could take pictures. The middle hall was being set up for rehearsals and they had sets on stage, so we couldn't take photos due to copyright rules. The building set a new standard for daring design, mostly because it's not rectangular or even circular. One interesting point in the design is that the two main performing halls are side-by-side, which maximizes the space on the pennisula.
After the tour, we ate lunch in the Opera House Cafe and bought a couple of items in the souvenir store. We then proceeded over to the Royal Botanic Gardens (http://www.sydney.com/destinations/sydney/sydney-city/city-centre/attractions/royal-botanic-gardens-and-the-domain), where we wandered around for an hour or so. The latter half of our wandering took us to the Government House grounds (http://www.sydney.com/destinations/sydney/sydney-city/city-centre/attractions/government-house) – we couldn't get inside the House itself as tours only operate Fri-Sun. After returning to Circular Quay, we had some excellent gelato for a mid-afternoon snack before taking the ferry back to Darling Harbour. It took about the same amount of time as the train and we thoroughly enjoyed the fresh air on our trip back.
