Sydney Australia

About a 3 hour flight from Cairns Australia to Sydney Australia. We flew over more of the Great Barrier Reef on our way to Sydney, and it was a beautiful site from the airplane., flying at 35,000 ft. It is so long. A beautiful sight from the air for sure. Beautiful colors of  water surround the Great Barrier Reef.

Very small portion of the Great Barrier Reef from the airplane on our flight to Sydney from Cairns.

We got a taxi to take us from the airport to our downtown Sydney hotel. We stayed at “The York”. We were on the 10th floor of the 28 story building right downtown Sydney, that had a kitchen and a washer and dryer right in our hotel room. It was a real old building, and really tall, but not as tall as the buildings around it.  

It was also pretty close to Sydney Harbor, which is where we found ourselves everyday of the five days we were there. It was a great walk everyday ‘down’ to the Harbor, but of course, once we headed back to our hotel at the end of our day, it was all uphill. Did I mention that the streets around the hotel were very, very steep? oh yes...maybe a 1/2 mile walk down to the harbor BUT,,,,,, it seemed like 5 miles back up...Not counting all the walking we did all around the Harbor. Like Seattle, or San Francisco. Very steep. It was a fast walk ’down’ to the harbor, but it was a struggle sometimes to get back to the hotel, but we made it. We walked about 6 to 7 miles every single day in Sydney. In the city itself there are a lot of office buildings, and a ton of people that work in them. Most people apparently take public transportation, or small scooters. They walk, and walk fast. Every street corner has ‘walk’ lights, and every street corner is crowded. It does slow down some after about 9 am weekdays, as most people are at their prospective jobs by that time.

There were 2 main attractions that we wanted to make sure to see at the Sydney Harbor, (also known as Circular Quay) and that is the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Although we did spend one day on a tour to the Blue Mountains.

Circular Quay (pronounced KEY) is the harbor region of Sydney. It is also called 'The Rock", where in 1788  they first started a penal colony in Australia with convicts that were deported from England.  It is a busy transport hub with ferries and water taxi's traveling to various locations, there is also the train, which travels elsewhere around the city and also to the airport. We could have done group tours, but we decided to embark on our own and tour of the city. There is a main promenade along the harbor with an array of people, from tourists to street performers and Aboriginals playing the didgeridoos. I had a nice conversation with one of those performers, a gentleman playing a very old looking accordion, looked old, the accordion that is, but I guess it was only 8 years old. Uncle Wayne would have loved seeing and hearing that!

And then of course the Sydney Opera House is there at the harbor. The Sydney Opera House was our first stop on our very first day in Sydney. Its very hard to miss! We did take the tour inside of the Opera House, and it is truly an amazing work of art. We had intended to buy tickets to attend a play inside the opera house, but most were either sold out, or way, way out of our price range. There were several concerts during the 5 days we were there, and at first we were interested, however, those concerts were on the steps outside the opera, and they too were expensive, and it was extremely hot there.

Facts on the Sydney Opera House:  Taking 15 years to construct, 1959 to 1973, the Sydney Opera House was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1973, designed by 38 year old architect Joern Utzon, from Denmark. The distinctive roof comprises sets of interlocking vaulted ‘shells’ set on a big terraced platform.The two main halls are arranged side by side slightly inclined from each other.

Noted for its excellent acoustics, the ceilings, walls and the auditorium seat frames are all of wood. The ceiling is 82 feet above the platform, and upper walls are paneled with white birch plywood, and the lower walls, stairs, boxes and stage platform are paneled with a hard brown wood. These Australian woods are used throughout the building. The Concert Hall Grand Organ was designed and built by Australian, Ronald Sharp, between 1969 and 1979. It has 10,500 pipes. It is massive. So Impressed with the tiles of the roof. From a distance the tiles all look white, but as you get closer you see that they are really a combination of two colors, cream and white, and two types of finish a matte finish and a glaze finish. They are laid so that the cream matte tiles are at the edges of each strip, and the white glazed tiles are in the middle. They are laid in a chevron type of design.

Close enough you should see the different color and shapes of the tiles.

There are 8 different tile sizes used on the shells.  It took about a million tiles to cover the roof. Many legendary performers have appeared in the Sydney Opera House.

The other big iconic point of interest in the the Sydney Harbor is the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

 Construction began in 1923 and it was officially opened in 1932. Its a steel arch bridge that connects the Sydney Business District to the north shore. It is the 6th longest spanning arch bridge in the world and the tallest steel arch bridge. It is also known as the "Coathanger" because of the shape of its arch. It is used by vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles and trains.   It has 8 lanes of traffic, 3 of which can be reversed to accommodate morning and evening rush hour traffic, 2 rail lines and 1 bicycle lane. So we had a few choices as to what to do at the bridge...we could drive across the bridge, but we didn't have a car, you can also do the "Bridge Climb" which takes 3 1/2 hours, and costs $200.00, or you could do the express climb, which is 'halfway'...but that still costs, or walk across it. We chose to walk across the Sydney Harbor Bridge before it got so hot. It was a very long walk, but it still got hot before we were actually done walking across it. Once we reached the other side we certainly didn't want to walk back across it to get back to the harbor, we somehow managed to figure out how to buy a ticket to ride a ferry back to Circular Quay. Very hot day indeed. We were thrilled to get a ride instead of walking back across the bridge for sure.

Here are a couple more pictures of Sydney Harbor and the Opera house that we took from the Sydney Harbor Bridge. (just can't get enough of this view)

We were exhausted from all the Harbor things we did, so for the next day we signed up for a 'tour' of the Blue Mountains and Australia's 'Grand Canyon', where someone else would show us around. We were picked up right at our hotel, It was an all day event..we left at 7:10 am and returned at 6:15 pm. It was narrated so we learned a lot about the region. The drive took us through many of the towns in that area. It took us to Featherdale Wildlife Park a zoo of just Australia animals, reptiles and birds: the Koalas, Kangaroos, Wallabys, the Cassowarys, Emu's, Crocodiles, Tazmanian Devils, and Wombats.

Koalas sleep 18 hours a day.

Koalas can only live one place in the world....AUSTRALIA

Feeding Kangaroos

Cassowary: are usually 4-5 ft tall, and weigh 120 lbs.
It is a flightless large bird similiar to the ostrich or emu. 

Along the drive to the village of Leura we saw many Cockatoos in the wild, they are large white parrots with yellow curled tufts on their head. In the village of Leura, we were on our own for shopping or doing lunch. Stopped at Echo Point, an overlook area into their Grand Canyon, and a rock formation called 'Three Sisters'.

Then we traveled on to 'Scenic World' where we rode the world's steepest railway down to the rainforest boardwalk. It was a gorgeous walk, with so many ferns and just fantastic jungle views. Then we rode the Skyway cable car back up to the top passing Katoomba Falls.

Katoomba Falls

The bus ride back into Sydney was long, but we enjoyed the day and the scenery outside of the city of Sydney. The bus didn't drop us off at our hotel, it dropped us off at a Ferry terminal 45 minutes from the Harbor..so we had additional time to admire the beautiful river and harbor area of Sydney. Of course that Ferry didn't drop us off at the hotel either, so we had to hoof it back UP to our hotel.

Next day we did all our laundry and repacked our suitcases, and enjoyed our last night relaxing in Sydney, and that next morning with suitcases in hand, (both hands actually) we hoofed it 'down' to the harbor. It really was easy, thank goodness it was early and the temperature was not hot yet.

Boarding the cruise ship went great, they made it so easy for us. We were glad to finally be on board where we could sit back relax and enjoy the next 32 days on a cruise. Maybe there will be less walking?? We'll see!!

Our Cruise Ship will sail to New Zealand first.....before going back to Australia and traveling the lower portion of Australia. We'll blog New Zealand next.

Our cruise begins and ends in Sydney. We will stay in Sydney for only one night at the end of the cruise before flying out the next day toward Colorado.  (That will be March 29th).

Enjoy our Sydney part of the Blog.