G'day all, sorry it's been a while since the last update - no wi-fi since the airport at Christchurch, and I'm actually writing this in our motel in Alice Springs, so have to catch up on our time in Sydney!
On Tuesday 20th March our alarm went off at 04.00, and by 04.45 we were at the airport (only about 3 minutes on the shuttle bus from our hotel)! We had a smooth flight and landed ahead of schedule, more confusing time travelling though, as we went forward in time by 2 hours, making us 11 hours ahead of UK time instead of 13. We got a taxi to our appartment rather than struggling along with our rucksacks and bags trying to find a bus, but ended up with a taxi driver who was very surly and uncommunicative, and we hoped that this wasn't going to be an indication of the mood of Sydneysiders in general!
However, when we got to our 'serviced appartment' in Potts Point, we were delighted to find everyone very welcoming and helpful. Our room had an amazing view out towards the Opera House and Harbour Bridge to the left, and to the right we looked out over the bay, with lots of anchored boats of all shapes and sizes bobbing about - perfect.
We decided to go straight out and have a look round, as it was a lovely day (it had been very wet in Christchurch). We were able to walk to town though the Botanic Gardens, which were FABULOUS! The first thing we saw was a large Ibis just wandering along pecking the grass, then there were cockatoos in trees, and rainbow lorikeets flying overhead, and obviously no end of lovely weird and wonderful trees and plants. We could hear a real racket that sounded like monkeys screeching, and saw crowds of people looking up at a large tree and pointing. When we went to look too, we were amazed to see hundreds of large fluffy bats, hanging upside down, but also fanning themselves with their wings, jostling for the best position on the branches, and screeching like parrots! Every now and again a new one would come gliding in from another tree, and start all the others off screeching again - I could have stayed watching them all day, but we decided to head off to get some lunch as we were pretty hungry after our early start.
Well, we didn't expect Sydney to be cheap, but we were actually quite shocked at how expensive everything was! Basically, after trudging round for ages, looking for somewhere to eat, we ended up at (dare I say it.... ) McDonalds! Tony had a 'meal', while I had the vegetarian option - (fries and a strawberry milkshake!) and we took it onto an open-topped hop on, hop off tour bus. The tour was quite unusual, as the driver didn't seem to notice that the commentary didn't allow for things like stopping at red traffic lights. We either had all the information way before we reached the places described, so craned our necks to see things that weren't there, and then long periods of driving at breakneck speed under low overhanging branches, with no commentary at all. The tour was 90 minutes, so after we had had fleeting high speed glances of the bridge and the opera house, we were shown an Irish pub ("where you can buy a real pint of Guinness"), Harry's mobile pie shop ("where you can stop on your way home from work to buy a pie"), the RTA - (nothing to do with an accident, but the Sydney version of the DVLA), and so it went on. We were also told we might just get a glimpse of this or that, but it might be obscured by overhanging trees! Well, it was very entertaining, and the ticket was also valid for 24 hours and for a second tour that would take in the bays and Bondi beach. We didn't think we could cope with too much excitement on our fist day, so we decided to leave it until the next day.
We wandered back to have a really good look at the opera house - such a well known building, but infinitely better to see in real life! It is beautiful. I think I took photos of it from every angle. After that we walked back through the Botanic Gardens to have another look at the flying foxes. We spent ages trying to get a photo of one gliding overhead, but the camera just wasn't fast enough. I got frustrated with taking endless shots of an empty blue sky and then deleting them, so decided to put the camera away and just enjoyed watching them!
Sydneysiders seem to be VERY energetic, there were people out running in every direction and all through the day. On our way home there was a flight of 112 steep stone stairs, and as I puffed my way up them, I was overtaken by a young man running up them at high speed ... with a mountain bike slung over his shoulder! We found the supermarket round the corner from our accommodation was Woolworths, did sme shopping then went back to cook dinner. We ate our meal looking out over the wonderful view and watching the lights come on all ove the city. Another amazing sight was all the bats, leaving their daytime perches in droves, just a few a first, then hundreds of them, flying out against the night sky - fabulous! Goodnight.