Sydney

Today's mission was to hit a few of the iconic tourist sites of Sydney. We had arranged for a motel stay near the airport to rest up and recover from all the last minute effort of cleaning up and packing (or in Aiden's case, visiting and playing) and so we caught the train into the heart of Sydney 10 km away. The harbour is more than just the centerpiece for the city, everything in Sydney revolves around it.  We had been told that only the bravest / craziest drivers try their luck at driving around Sydney with its unplanned streets scattered like a maze around the bays, rivers, creeks and harbours that inundate the city. The public transit on the other hand is efficient and reasonably priced. For the low price of $17 per adult and around $9 for Aiden, we had unlimited travel on all the trains, buses and ferries in the Sydney area on a day tripper fare. Given one way taxi fare from the airport to the city is around $45, we thought that it was a steal of a deal and way faster to boot.

On Frank and Sylvia's recommendation, we started off with a ferry ride to Manly. It starts in the heart of Sydney and begins by heading out between the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. There were great views of both attractions from the ferry. We spent a couple of hours in Manly playing on the beach, watching surfers and enjoying a good feed of fresh fish and chips. We then headed back downtown, explored the Rocks and listened to some talented didgeridoo players. The Rocks is on the west side of Sydney cove an is an interesting area of narrow cobbled streets, colonial buildings, pubs, restaurants, cafes and shopping.

Our next visit was to the highest point in the city, the Sydney Centrepoint Tower which rises 260 m above the city or about as tall as 60 giraffes apparently. A visit to the tower is packaged with an experience called OzTrek which is a multimedia show that highlights the attractions of Australia. The show at the end involved an amusement park style ride with moving seats as you fly over the Outback or underwater at the Barrier Reef. Not sure we would have paid for it separately but it was mildly entertaining. Fortunately it was over in time for us to get up to the observation deck to take in many stunning views of the city before the clouds rolled in and reduced the visibility to about 100 m. When we headed back down to ground it had decided to get serious about raining and we had dinner before heading back to the hotel for the night.

While it was only a quick flavour of Sydney and hardly enough to do it justice, it was about all the city us country folk can handle for a while. Tomorrow we are looking for a car and heading out of the city for a bit, do some camping perhaps if the weather cooperates and see something else besides the largest city in Australia.