The Sydney Opera House before dawn today.
Our body clocks are still a mess. G woke up at 2am, and his rummaging through luggage woke me up, too. Finally, he went in to shower and that allowed me to fall back asleep. He went off in search of coffee (we later found a coffee maker in a cabinet in our room) and I continued to sleep. Still, by 6am, I was joining him for the buffet breakfast that is included with our hotel rate. It was fantastic, which was a good thing. We were starving. A highlight was the juice bar, and I made all sorts of juice combinations. My favorite was carrot, apple and ginger, but I liked watermelon and cucumber also. It was wonderful to make juice after juice and not have to prepare the produce or clean up the juicer. What a concept.
While yesterday had been sunny and warm, today’s high was forecasted to be in the low 60s. While we ate, we could see a misty rain falling outside, but, after breakfast we still bundled up and went for a walk. Though we didn’t have a specific destination in mind, we walked through The Rocks and up the Argyle Stairs, stone steps carved into a sandstone wall in the mid 1800s primarily by convict labor to connect the lower Rocks area with the warehouse district of Miller’s Point above it. We continued up the Bridge Stairs until we reached the level of the road that crosses the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Our first intention was to climb to the top of the Pylon Lookout, in the southeast pylon on the Harbour Bridge. Housed in the Pylon are three levels of exhibitions about the building of the bridge, in addition to the lookout at the top. The admission fee of $15 AUD per person was just enough for us to decide to wait for a brighter and prettier day to make the climb and take photos from the top.
Climbers ready to walk across the upper edge of the Sydney Harbor Bridge
The Argyle Stairs
More stairs to climb
Does anyone know what this bird is? There were a hundred of them in a tree near the
Bridge Stairs making a cacophony of squawks.
The southeast bridge pylon houses the Lookout and exhibits
A lock for a long and hapoy marriage. I first saw this tradition at the Great Wall of China,
where there are hundreds of them.
Walking across the bridge
On our past visits, we had climbed the bridge, driven across it and driven through the Harbour Tunnel that runs under the harbor, but we hadn’t walked across the bridge, so we decided to do that today. It was downright blustery as we neared the center of the bridge, enough so that we chose to take the train from the Milson’s Point station in North Sydney back across the bridge, completing our Modes of Transportation across Sydney Harbour checklist. ;-) Sydney Transportation has changed since we were last here. On our prior visit, we had purchased a multi day pass (I think we purchased cards good for unlimited travel for six out of seven consecutive days). Those passes are no longer used and today we instead purchased Opal Cards for the minimum of $10 AUD each. These cards have no expiration date and can be used on trains, ferries and buses. Fares that are lower than single ride fares are deducted each time one ‘taps in’ or validates the card at the start of a ride. Once a daily limit of $15 AUD is reached, all subsequent rides that day are free. So, in effect, it’s better than the old passes. The Opal Card does not have to be used on consecutive days (perfect for us) and can be topped up at any station.
Today’s ride was brief, and once we arrived at Wynard Station, we transferred to a Circular Quay-bound train and were deposited right in front of the ferry docks, about a 10-minute walk from the Holiday Inn Old Sydney, for a total cost of $2.48. On the way back to the hotel, we wandered through the Rocks Market, open air market stalls that are open on weekends. The tent-covered stalls feature everything from handmade jewelry to locally produced food and music and toiletries. We had just enough time then to return to our room for a 5-minute clean up before we needed to head out to our next destination.
A couple of weeks ago I was researching performances at the Sydney Opera House for the few days we’d be in the city. There was a show called Amadeus Live being performed once last night and twice today. The performance featured an HD viewing of the movie Amadeus accompanied by the full Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Cantillation performing Mozart’s masterpieces from the movie. This was right up my alley, and we decided that, while the two evening performances were likely out of the question due to our inevitable jet lag, today’s matinee performance at 1:30pm would certainly work. We walked the 15 minutes or so around Circular Quay to the Opera House and were directed by staff where to enter and where to go, because it certainly isn’t easily obvious, and there are hundreds of sightseers around the Opera House, so it isn’t like one can simply follow the crowd. The performance was held in the largest venue, the Concert Hall, and, while the use of photography was strictly forbidden, we were allowed to take photos before the show and during intermission.
The boardwalk along Circular Quay on the Opera House approach
The Sydney Opera House is actually comprised of a series of disjointed venues
Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House
The performance was excellent, the music among my favorites and the setting was unsurpassed. Though we thought it would be about two hours in length, it actually lasted more than three hours, and that ended our dinner plans to go to the Fine Food Store Cafe, right next door to the hotel and recommended by blog reader Cheryl, who has been an incredible source of information for us. They are open just for breakfast and lunch, and closed at 5pm. We were equally both very hungry and very tired, and backtracked to the Subway located on Circular Quay, and got dinner to go. By 7pm we were back in our room for longer than 5 minutes for the first time in 11 hours. It had been a nearly 22,000 step and three-hour symphony concert day, and we were ready to wrap it up.
The rain started up again as we headed for the hotel, but we stopped at an ATM to get cash for the first time since we arrived. Our credit card has been working fine in most places, but we needed more than the $200 AUD that had been in our safe deposit box since 2006 to get through these cruises. We ate our dinner in bed, and G was already asleep and I was still writing this post when I heard what had to be fireworks and hopped up. Sure enough, there was a spectaclular fireworks show over the Royal Botanic Gardens just beyond the Opera House. I woke G up and we watched the roughly 12-minute display right from our window. Fireworks in Sydney after a concert at the Opera House? It simply doesn’t get any better than that.
We’ve been here less than 48 hours, but it already seems like we’ve had a full vacation,,,and tomorrow we board the Golden Princess for a stream of cruises. We have an alarm set for 5am to watch for the arrival of the ship. The weather forecast for tomorrow shows significant improvement, and fingers are crossed for a beautiful sailaway out of Sydney Harbour.