Holy cold front! Today, it's a lot cooler and overcast than the record setting sunny day of yesterday. It's April 7 here - a very special day. Happy birthday Gavin! Love you forever....

Our tour has ended.  I must say g Adventures knows how to organize a tour.  This is the second one we've taken and are very happy with the service.  Caitlin especially made this tour great. She constantly went out of her way to keep us all happy.

Now, we have 4 days to spend before our New Zealand tour starts. We decided to spend 2 1/2 days in Sydney and then 1 1/2 days in Auckland. 

I'm feeling very homesick today as it's Gavin's birthday and this is the first time in 31 years we haven't been with him to celebrate. I'm also sad because I already miss my friends in the group. Now it's just Vic and I for 4 days!!! Yikes!!!!

So we checked into our new hotel - we thought the last one was bad but it was head and shoulders over this one. It's an older building, nice enough, but old. The bathroom is pint sized and has a bit of mould and the toilet runs all the time. We have to turn it off during the night. And the room is certainly not sound proof. We are on a busy street and it sounds like the trucks are going to come right through. There is also a pub right under us with music blaring until midnight. I was hoping to catch up on some much needed rest but I don't think that is meant to be. I was awake at 1:18 am and couldn't get back to sleep. To make matters worse the wifi in the room is poor. It's ok in the pub but not in the rooms. Vic had to don ear plugs to try to get to sleep. But it is what it is so we'll deal with it. The owner is a very nice man who it's going out of his way to make sure we are happy.

To, hopefully, banish our blues, we hit the bustling center of this cosmopolitan city. We decided to go to Paddy's Markets, the oldest and most well known market in Sydney, in the Haymarket district. It has been in this area since 1869. We bought some souvenirs and then made our way to the Hop On, Hop Off bus to orient ourselves with the city. Sydney really is beautiful with its mix of old and new architecture, beaches, harbour and friendly people. We spent about 3 hours on the bus and did both the Sydney proper tour and the Bondi portion. We saw all the highlights and now know what parts we want to revisit and see in more detail. The only problem is that in not sure now what the pictures are of. So I'll post some but may not know the exact site it is. We wandered down George Street lined with shops & restaurants and full of people bustling around. I can tell you that it is a wee bit different from George St in St. John's Newfoundland, which is lined with bars and pubs and crazy Newfies. We walked back to our hotel to try to catch up on this blog using the wifi in the pub in our hotel.

Sydney has many districts or areas & places of interest. We saw most of them including Hyde Park, on the edge of the city centre.  It was originally a race course, then hosted other amusements such as wrestling, circuses, cricket matches and public hangings.  Now it is a peaceful oasis, named after the London park by Governor Macquarie in 1810.  The Anzac Memorial is a 98 foot high Deco memorial in the Pool of Remembrance and commemorates Australians killed in the war. There is a memorial service every day at 11:00 am in honour of the soldiers killed. It opened in 1934. 

We saw Kings Cross, Paddington, Circular Quay, the Opera House, St Mary's Cathedral, the Rocks, Darling Harbour, Harbour Bridge, King St Wharf, the Finger wharves, the Royal Botanical Gardens, Sydney TowerEye, Rose Bay, Double Bay (where we are meeting our friends that we met on the Machu Pichu tour), Bondi Beach (which was much less populated than yesterday), and Chinatown to name a few.

So, here's my brief lowdown on some of them. Circular Quay is a busy transport hub which offers ferries to various locations across Sydney and has the Opera House. The Botanical Gardens looked lovely. It is 30 hectares of gardens in the heart of the city near the Opera House. St. Mary's Cathedral is opposite Hydes Park and is one of the finest English style gothic churches in the world. It's foundation stone was laid in 1868. Chinatown is a colourful mix of Asian culture and cuisine. The Rocks is an area named for the rocky shoreline that was used as a convict landing point in 1788. Less than 100 years ago it was the rat-infested slum of Sydney where gangs ruled the streets. Paddington is a Sydney suburb with many designer boutiques which was home to tradesmen who supervised the convict gangs that built the Victoria Barracks in the 1840's. It is now a popular address with young, up and coming Sydneysiders. Kings Cross: this is a thriving cafe society best described as close to Sydney's red light district. Rose Bay and Double Bay are small inlets that have boats moored. They are quite ritzy. Double Bays nickname is double pay!

Tomorrow we'll go back to some of the sights we saw today to see them in more detail.