Sydney - First Impressions

If we ever did want to live in a big city, Sydney would be near the top of the list. It really is a spectacularly beautiful city with two iconic structures almost side by side around the fabulous harbour shoreline. The Botanic Gardens and Hyde Park provide beautiful cool green spaces in the city centre and there are many well kept gardens, parks and playing fields where ever you go.

The people are very friendly and helpful, always offering help when you look as though you might be lost. Maybe it was because we were in the vicinity of the opera house but the ladies, in particular, were very elegantly dressed with lots of leg on show. The drivers are very considerate, always stopping if there is the merest hint that you might be wanting to cross at a zebra crossing. Everyone is incredibly polite.

I think that the reason for all this wellbeing is the climate. The weather has been quite hot and the locals have been mobbing the beaches. Nothing like a day at the beach for cheering you up. There also seems to be a great interest in keeping fit and healthy. The parks are full of joggers (of all ages), yoga groups, footballers, cricketers, body builders and dog walkers. It must be much easier to go outside and exercise if the weather is always great.

So first impressions are very good.

We arrived in Sydney early on Thursday morning after a 14 hr flight and 7hrs time difference and decided to get out and explore the city. It was only a 2.5 mile walk to the Opera House via the botanic gardens so off we went. Having seen all of Sydney in one day we walked back to the hotel and collapsed into bed after 9pm in order to catch up on lost sleep and be fresh for our trip to the Blue Mountains which departed the following morning at 7am. Susan set the alarm on the mobile phone for 6am. It was still dark when the phone went off and Susan jumped out of bed and into the shower. Ten minutes later she was back kicking me out of bed and and calling me a lazy sod. I felt as though I had had hardly any sleep and so it turned out. A wise man checks his watch before jumping into a shower when the world is in pitch darkness. It was a few minutes after midnight. Oh how I laughed as Susan rushed around the room still dripping wet.

The Blue Mountains were beautiful. They are so called because the Eucalyptus trees evaporate off their oil giving a blue tinge to the

atmosphere. It was seriously hot in the mountains. We took jumpers thinking that the higher we got the cooler it would be. It turns out that the further away from the sea breezes and the closer to the desert you get the hotter it becomes. We stopped off at a little zoo on the way and introduced ourselves to the local wildlife - soooo cute!!!

The trip into the floor of the Jamison valley was by way of three error rides. A cable car across the gorge, A steep drop in a cable car to the valley floor to see former coal mine workings and a ride on the world's steepest railway (52 degrees) to get back up again.

Our tour guide was a water bully. His name is Reg. He had us all convinced that unless we drank 4 litres during the course of the trip we were likely to die of heatstroke. He went round checking us individually to see how much we had drunk. This is really a lot of water. We didn't get heatstroke but we were up all of the second night peeing. I think that this is how Reg gets his kicks.

We had a wonderful third day with Patricia. We met Patricia in Vietnam last year and she made the mistake of saying "If you are ever in ……". Hi Patricia, here we are! She took us to her favourite beaches. Redleaf was absolutely beautiful. A public beach within the harbour it has wonderful views and there were hundreds of yachts in the bay. Next off to the harbour entrance and then on to Bondi beach. Bondi was the busiest beach I've ever seen. Thanks Patricia - we had a great day out.

This is probably a longer than average blog posting because we are presently doing a washing and I'm waiting for the drier to stop.

Tomorrow we take a ferry to Manly and meet our tour group in the evening. Post again soon.