We flew JetStar from Bali to Sydney, Australia arriving in the evening. It was a nearly six hour flight as we had to fly all the way across Australia to Sydney which is on the southeast coast. We were lucky to see Ayer’s Rock (Uluru) outside our plane window as we flew across the country. We found Sydney to be amazingly easy to get around. It was a short train ride from the airport to the central business district where our hotel, The Little National, was. Our hotel was very modern, with small, but cleverly designed, rooms. It had lots of nice amenities including a rooftop bar and lounge where people could work and hang out. The room itself had a super-sized king bed at the end with a full size window looking towards the city. All the main sites were within walking distance, and train, light rail and bus stops were all over. We had some drinks and snacks at the rooftop bar when we arrived.
On our first day, we took a train from our hotel to Milsons Point where we got great views of Sydney’s harbor while we walked back across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This was our first good view of the Sydney Opera House. From this distance, we were a little disappointed. It looked smaller than we expected – and seemed more tan than white. Later we would get a different perspective and change our mind. From the bridge, we walked around the Circular Quay past the historic Rocks district and the main ferry docks. From here we circled back towards the Opera House.
The Opera House looked much more impressive as you got closer to it. And when we finally got really close, we realized the roof was made of both tan and white tiles. That’s why it didn’t always look white. It really depended on how the sun was hitting it. On the back side of the opera house you arrived at a massively wide staircase that brought you to the entrance. There were lots of restaurants and bars all along the quay as you approached, and hundreds of people were sitting outside having a fun time.
We continued our trek along the harbor by entering the Royal Botanic Gardens. This large public park had fascinating trees, plants and birds. Once again, we were amazed at the scale of the different types of fig trees like the banyan trees we first saw in Hawaii. We also spotted several different birds including the sulphur-crested cockatoos – a large white parrot that is well known in Australia. We actually heard them first, as their “caws” are very loud and noisy.
We spent much of our second day in Sydney doing research for our New Zealand camping trip. Cyclone Gabrielle and historic rains in February caused a lot of flooding, land slides and other damage across the north island of New Zealand. Some of the places we had planned to visit were no longer accessible or open, so we needed to regroup. We had supper on Darling Harbour, then watched fireworks that they put on in the middle of the harbor every Saturday night.
In our brief time in Sydney, we found the city to be charming and the people fun and friendly. We don’t feel like we did it justice, though, and will hopefully have the chance to come back and explore more of Australia one day. The next morning we were off to Auckland, New Zealand.
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