A Hot Winter's Day in Sydney

Interesting Tree

Sorry folks, we just experienced a hot day in Sydney - and it is exactly mid-Winter here, when I say hot, I mean the sun cream came out, we striped down to T-shirts and I wished I wasn't wearing jeans!  Yep, it is official - mid Winter in Sydney is hotter than mid Summer in the UK!

Fig Tree

So we had mixed fortunes with sleeping last night.  I did OK, Matt and Tom didn't.  We all woke up at 1.30am convinced it was about 7am and we had had a good sleep - fat chance!!!!  We did all fall asleep again, but Matt and Tom were up again at 3.30!  Tom didn't go back to bed until 7.00 and then Matt went back to bed at 9.00 - so we weren't ready to start the day until 10am ish.

The beginning of the day didn't look good - howling gail, rain etc, but we were determined to get into Sydney City proper so we got our weekly travel pass and hopped on the ferry to Circular Quay.  It was a little choppy - so much so that those sitting outside got a drowning in sea spray.  However, it calmed considerably as we rounded the bay and got our first glimpse of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge - yep we really are in Australia now.

White Ibis (scary beaks)

The weather had cheered up so we decided to do the touristy thing: Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Botanical Gardens (Mrs MacQuarie's Point and Mrs MacQuarie's Chair).  The Botanical Gardens were great - full of weird trees and birds.  I was hoping to see lots of bright green and red lorikeets, but they eluded us.  However, there were plenty of birds with evil looking beaks, and lots of amazing trees - including some of my favourite - fig trees - with their roots twisting and turning over and over.

We hunted down a cafe and were once again shocked at the prices of food and opted for the cheapest thing we could find - pies (we think a significant number of people from Wigan must have settled here!)    They were nice enough but my diet has gone right out of the window!

After lunch we headed onwards to Mrs MacQuarie's landmarks and took the must have pics of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House - at this point it was scorching hot - we had to get out the suncream to stop us burning.

Guess where we are?

We then carried on round the headland and sheltered in a convenient rocky overhang for a cloud burst, we then carried on to a road where we planned to get a bus towards Darling Harbour.  We got the bus, but disaster struck: the bus ate Matt's travel card and would not give it back.  The bus driver didn't have a key to the machine and therefore couldn't retrieve it.  Great - it cost over $40 and he had only used it for one ferry trip and one bus trip.  The next hour was spent trying to get someone in authority to re-issue the card - no - go, everyone passed the buck and said it was someone else's problem - yes our problem - $40 down the drain.  It didn't create a happy mood.

Water Wheel and Soggy Tom

Almost falling in!

However, we had to draw a line and carry on with the day so we walked over to Darling Harbour.  I was hoping to find the Outback Centre where they have free live performances of aboriginal music - I went many times when I was here last.  Darling Harbour has changed significantly in the last 13 years - I hardly recognised any of it.  I went to tourist information to ask - but was told that it had closed because the owner had died and aboriginals can't pass business down the family line???  Sounds a bit strange, but it isn't there anymore which is a real shame as it gave you a really good flavour of the outback and aboriginal culture.  However, we did find a very good children's playground with loads of things to climb up, zoom down and a huge water feature with dams, sluice gates, wheels, rivers etc etc. Tom loved it - and went off to play without us.  I think we were there a good hour before we were able to drag him away.  We then headed for the Darling Harbour Ferry back to Circular Quay and then the Manly Ferry back to the flat.  Luckily all the ticket operators took pity on us and let us on without Matt's ticket.  Once again though no-one would take responsibility and issue us with a new ticket.

We got back to the flat around 5.30, so I made dinner for the workers (they arrive at 6.20) managed to get Tom to eat with us and then put him to bed, he was asleep within a minute of saying goodnight to him.