Australia: Being Tourists in Sydney

Our dear friends Paul and Irene Ballew braved 24 hours of flying from Issaquah, WA to visit us in Sydney. We stayed on the boat the first two nights so they could experience the joys of hand flush toilets and being rocked to bed each night by the waves.

After getting reacquainted and hearing everything about each other's families, we decided to explore the local area and get some exercise. We took a wonderful walk (two times) up to Church Point (on the northern shore of where our boat is anchored) to the venerable Church Point Cafe.

The inland Pittwater area is lined with beautiful beaches such as this. As you can see, there are boats everywhere on the inner waters of Pittwater.

The Church Pt. Cafe is a local institution and tables are fully booked long in advance.

We got to Church Pt.  early and enjoyed some Cafe Lattes and a nice waterfront view table. We learned there was entertainment later so we walked the two plus miles back to our dingy landing and had lunch there.

Every Sunday at around 3:00 pm the Church Pt. Cafe hosts live entertainment. Today's artist was a former punk rocker turned blues guitarist named David Rainey.

On Dec. 4th we drove down to Sydney (that's worth a blog post by itself as we circumnavigated the block three times with Walter on Google Maps trying to find the entrance to our AirBnb condominium). Paul and Irene had booked a great AirBnb right across from the Sydney Fish Market in Blackwattle Bay, just a short walk to Darling Harbor and downtown Sydney. We took a lot of pictures of our stay in Sydney and they tell the story best.

The next morning we Uber'd over to Spit Bridge to begin the 8-mile walk along the Sydney Harbor shoreline to Manley. Since it was a Super Moon, the tides were extra high on parts of the trail necessitating some barefoot travel.

The trail winds through park land and very upscale suburban neighborhoods.

The trail winds through Sydney Harbor National Park where there is an Aboriginal site with well preserved stone carvings, this one representing a fish.

As you approach Manley the scene becomes more urban, but the bays are still packed with boats.

We had a wonderful lunch at the Four Pines Brew Pub and then took the ferry back to Circular Quay in Sydney. Everyone had their cameras out as we passed under the iconic Sydney Bridge.

On Dec. 6th we walked down Pyrmont Bridge Road to the Pyrmont Bridge, which is used only as a pedestrian passage and has wonderful views down to Darling Harbor. Our goal was to visit the famous Darling Harbor Aquarium that Meryl and I had visited over 20 years ago.

Darling Harbor has been transformed into a tourist mecca with wide promenades on both side of the bay. This is the view from Pyrmont Bridge.

The intrepid travelers had to pose for the required tourist photo on the Pyrmont Bridge.

The Darling Harbor Aquarium is unique in that you walk through glass tunnels and view the fish from the sides and overhead. It's a little unnerving when a huge shark passes overhead staring at you like it's lunch time.

This large sawfish checked us out on an overhead pass.

We discovered the joys of using Uber to get around metropolitan Sydney. I have to say it was one of the best transportation experiences we've ever had. We'd pull up the app on our iPhone (it already knew where we were) and give it our destination and instantly we were presented with a map of nearby Uber cars and how much it would cost (seems like most destinations where about US$ 7-10, which when split two ways wasn't much). The drivers would usually arrive in about two minutes and were incredibly friendly, many times given us a guided narrative to the town. At the end of the day we'd Uber to our condo and be dropped at the front door, great service since we were all usually wiped out by then.

Our next days adventure was to explore the downtown area and the Sydney Opera House. We'd arranged for a free walking tour that began in Hyde Park (you make a donation at the end) and Meryl had booked an Opera House tour for 3:30 pm.

This is the old Department of Education building in downtown Sydney. Many of the older buildings are constructed of a local tan sandstone that glows in the afternoon light.

The Queen of the Seas was berthed between the Sydney Bridge and the Opera House. Nice views from both sides.

We opted to take a Free Tour from Hyde Park to the Rocks area near the Sydney Opera House. 

The wide promenades near Circular Quay (the ferry terminal) host a large number of great restaurants. We stopped at one only to quickly move inside when a torrential rainstorm passed overhead.

Here we are being normal, everyday tourists. We'd loved it.

Paul and Irene have wrapped up an impressive year of worldwide travel. Where better to cap off the year then down under?

The beautiful Sydney Opera house was designed by Jorn Utzon, who was railroaded out of town never to return to see the completion of his fabled work.

This view is surreptitiously called "The Cleavage" by the tour guides. The roof is made of three different shades of ceramic tiles.

 Back at the condo we had envisioned staying up until all hours drinking and reminiscing, but to tell the truth we were all completely wiped out after the long days in the sun. Paul had a new FitBit on his wrist and we were walking between six and eight miles a day. Our next adventure was a tour of the Wildlife Sydney Zoo in Darling Harbor.

Second only to the kangaroo, the koala bears are one of Australia's favorite animals.

These rock wallabies live on cliff areas and rock faces. They are very agile with their legs and tail working in unison.

You don't want to run into the Green Tree Python in the outback.

Paul and Meryl were having an "up close and personal" moment with this boa constrictor.

Despite the trainers promise that this was a very "socialized" boa constrictor, we still gave it lots of room.

This is one snake you don't want to run into under any circumstances. It's the famous Taipan, 30 times more poisonous than other snakes. It's large, fast-moving, and neurotoxic. Only one person has survived a bite from the taipan (without using anti venom)

Another nasty character is the salt water crocodile, called "salties." These get up to 26 feet in length and have been known to attack dinghies and small boats. Even Australians are afraid of these guys.

As you can see, it was a event-packed week for the Ballews and Conners. We originally had been neighbors in Bellevue, Washington and have stayed friends over the last 40 years. They are great people and it was very difficult to say good-bye, even though we'll be visiting them for a short time when we return to Seattle in February.