Last morning on Kangaroo Island. This is one of my favorite places so far on the trip. I’m sure I’ll love the GBR too once we get there. But, first, we are off to Sydney. We got up relatively early, Sandy made us breakfast and then Ian took us to the little airport in Kingscote. We didn’t even have to pass through a security checkpoint: it’s that small. I miss the days when airports were like that and people were more civilized. :) We had a rather bumpy flight back to Adelaide since it was so windy and the plane is so small. But, we survived and then waited for a bit to board our next flight into Sydney. We put part of our luggage in storage since we were only allowed a 15 kg checked bag on the flight to KI so we had to wait a bit for that to come out of storage. Our flight to Sydney wasn’t too long and we had morning tea and cake on the plane.
My first impression of Sydney is most likely a little biased since we were just in a very beautiful quiet place and I personally don’t care too much for cities. We paid for an airport shuttle to transport us to our hotel. We were stuck with this tiny van, luggage stuffed to the ceiling in the back compartment and stuffed with people inside that did not understand the concept of loading from the back first. I felt like purposely hitting everyone with my backpack as I squeezed my way into the back seat. It was about 30 minutes before we arrived at our hotel, so we saw a lot of the areas going into the city. Sydney appeared like any other major city: dirty, full of traffic, a few homeless people here and there. Our hotel was located in the business district (or CBD) so the streets became nicer as we neared our destination. We arrived on Friday afternoon: the sidewalks were full of business men and women in suits with briefcases or backpacks and the streets were heavy with traffic. Our accommodation was decent enough but very much unlike the previous two places we had stayed. It felt more like a low class business room missing a hand towel in the bathroom and with the barest amenities. But, that’s alright. We usually don’t spend much time in the room. Except, we really weren’t feeling like exploring very much today. It’s very difficult to switch from a beautiful island to a major city. Instead, we decided to do our laundry which we really needed to do. We located one on the top floor of our hotel and it was pretty cheap. We had a decent view of a small part of the city from the top floor so we enjoyed that as we waited for the laundry to be finished.
For dinner, we decided on a highly rated Italian restaurant named Machiavelli. It was amazing. We really lucked out. We were seated around a central food prep table where a few chefs prepared the antipasti dishes and the desserts. It was a treat to watch them make the desserts on the stove in front of you. We started out with an olive and parmesan cheese plate with little bread sticks. For my main I ordered ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach with a napoleon sauce. Both were delicious. For dessert we had zabaglione which was so sweet! We had watched one of the chefs preparing it earlier and it took him forever to whip it up. He started out with some unknown ingredients in a deep sauce pan, then he added a little wine and he began to stir it over a boiling pot of water for at least 5 minutes. The end result was a warm foamy sugary goodness. We are both soooo full that we are heading straight to bed. :)
12 September 2009, Saturday
We woke up bright and early today. We have prepaid tickets to climb the Harbour Bridge this morning.
It was easy enough to find and within walking distance of our hotel. The climb takes you all the way up to the very topmost part of the bridge but before we could climb, we had to get geared up first. They require everyone to take a breathalyzer test also. Don’t want any drunkards on top of the bridge! Then, they give everyone a jumpsuit to put on. This helps to camouflage the group so we don’t ruin everyone’s pictures traveling to Sydney. You can’t bring anything with you on the bridge and they make sure of that by having you go through a medal detector. Yet, not even a camera. The guide brings along a camera to take pictures of you. Next, if you bring eye or sunglasses, they give you a strap to secure them to your jumper. Then, you get your harness and ball barring line that secures you to the cable on the bridge. Then, you get some accessories: a hat which is clipped to your jumper and a cloth hankie that goes around your wrist. Next, they have a practice course setup so you can try out the stairs and the harness strap. Lastly, we all get walkie talkies and a headset so we can hear our guide and he can hear us. Now, we’re all set to begin the climb. Our total climb including all the gearing up takes about 3 hours round trip. We start off under the roadway in the bridge structure. Then we climb up a series of ladders going straight up. Finally, we are on the top part of the bridge and climbing the arch to where the two sides are joined together. The view at the top was amazing except for the smoke coming from a few fires in the distance. But, still, you could see all the way out to the ocean all the surrounding city of Sydney. It was so much fun climbing the bridge! I highly recommend it! You get one group photo free, but have to buy any of the other photos that the guide take of you as a couple.
After the climb, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and explored the area around the bridge. The Harbour Bridge is located in the Rocks district. They have a cute street fair there along with several eateries. We also saw some hen parties (bachelorette parties) traveling from pub to pub.
Next we had to see the Opera House and take several pictures of that.
click here to see gallery
Sydney has a wonderful Botanic Garden there next to the Opera House so we took a stroll through that and low and behold, there are bats in Sydney!!
It was so cool to see them. They appeared to be fruit bats. The sun was to set in about an hour so they were waking up and some were flying around. There were so many of them up in the trees and you could hear them chattering. Too cool! That made Sydney worth visiting! :) After a long photo shoot of the bats, we headed back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. David found a place he wanted to check out in Rose Bay so we took a taxi out to the restaurant. I had the vegetarian meal of a salad and vegetables since I’m so picky and David ordered the tasting menu. The restaurant, The Pier, was on a pier in the harbor so we had a wonderful view of the harbor and of all the boats bobbing up and down in it.
click here to see gallery
For dessert, we had the strawberry soufflé. It was amazing. I think it is my new favorite dessert. :) Once back to the hotel and changed in to more comfortable clothes, we walked back to the Opera House and took some pictures of it at night. We had seen somewhere that they displayed a series of different color lights on it at night, but maybe it is only for special occasions because the Opera House was only lit by white lights. Still very pretty at night tho.
And that is all for today. We are flying up north to Cairns tomorrow afternoon to start our diving adventure. I’m exhausted so I’m heading to bed early. Night! :)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment