Day 19: Sydney

Although our plans changed today after seeing the weather, we had the best turnaround day today in Sydney. Captain D said yesterday that the Golden Princess would be passing by the North and South Heads at the entrance to Sydney Harbour around 5:20am. I set an alarm for 5am, but actually woke up at 4:29am (per my Fitbit) and have been awake since then, so this might be a little brief tonight. 

I was on on Deck 16 when the Golden Princess entered Sydney Harbour, and, just like last cruise, the first light of day could be seen just above the horizon, but, unlike last turnaround, there was an ominous black cloud obscuring the sunrise. 

The North (left) and South Heads at dawn. 

First glimpse of the Sydney Opera House

Neptune’s Reef pool at sunrise

The wind was fierce, so strong that it relentlessly whipped the zippered collar of my fleece against my face, and I didn’t last long up on Deck 17 midship by the radar golf balls. Instead I moved back down to Deck 15 and took a few photos, but it quickly became obvious that there was not going to be a pretty sunrise this morning. I gave up and went down to the Horizon Court Buffet for a hot beverage or six to warm up. 

How strong was the wind early this morning?

These are large flags. 

G was nowhere to be seen (he later told me he was watching the ship’s webcam channel on TV and could see that this was not going to be a stellar arrival...smart man!) and I had to make a phone call during business hours back in the US which is early in the day our time. I went up to Skywalkers and using Vonage (For 1 cent per minute! Get the app!!) made an 800 number call, which is something I couldn’t do from abroad last year. That certainly simplified things, but it was still a 36 minute call (so thank God for Vonage).

G was in the Horizon Court Buffet when I returned and we discussed our plan for the day. Our intention had been to take a bus to Bondi Beach and do the roughly 2 hour Bondi to Coogee walk along the southern edge of Sydney’s harbor. Combined with the train ride to Bondi and the bus ride back from Coogee, and lunch somewhere along the way, this would have filled our few hours in Sydney. The brisk wind and chilly temperature had us reconsidering. 

Instead, we chose to take the fast ferry to Manly. There is a beautiful boardwalk there to hike, but also a lot of stores and restaurants along a pedestrian street if the wind on the coast was too strong. Manly was a favorite destination when we were in Sydney 11 years ago, and we used to take a ferry over simply to have lunch. 

The Manly Fast Ferry takes just 18 minutes from Circular Quay, so we walked off the Golden Princess and were in Manly within 30 minutes. Once there, we walked down the pedestrian street to the beach, which was windy but not too. We retraced our steps from 11 years ago and walked out toward the North Head of the harbor. We walked a long time, until we felt we had to turn around and get back to the pedestrian street for lunch. I had barramundi and G had fish and chips fro the same seafood restaurant we had eaten at years ago. 

Manly Beach

The boardwalk follows along the coast, climbing up the sea cliffs. 

The start of the pedestrian street in Manly

We knew that the 2:40pm ferry was the latest one we could take back to Circular Quay, but we stopped at the Aldi’s grocery store right at the ferry terminal (we remembered it from our last visit) and G bought potato chips and I bought 10 cans of sardines packed in water (for less than 50 cents USD a piece!). I am supposed to be eating these occasionally for their calcium and I really don’t mind the taste at all. So while other people are bringing on board water bottles and sodas and wine, my backpack was filled with sardines. ;-)

Some fun products from Aldi’s we don’t see at home...

Weekday sailboat traffic

We walked back on the ship at 3:24pm, a full 6 minutes before the required time. Seldom early, never late. That’s us!  We had walked 21000 steps and I was so tired, but there was no time to rest. We showered during the muster drill and were up in Skywalkers for sailaway. We went to dinner before 5:30pm. Our table remained unchanged but we are on our third set of waiters so far the season. It’s getting funny...when we arrive in the Bernini Dining Room before it gets busy, our waiters of cruises past stop by to say hi and give hugs. This could get time consuming by January!  ;-)

Reversing out of its berth, the Golden Princess gets pretty close to the Harbour Bridge (taken from Skywalkers).  

Another cloudy sailaway taken from Skywalkers

I had a fruit plate, salad and then pasta with a spicy tomato sauce over a lot of broccoli, and then had honeydew sorbet for dessert. Our new waiters, Rodrigo from Mexico and Rolando from the Philippines are very friendly and we are already spoiled. 

We sat in the Wheelhouse Bar for awhile after dinner to listen to Olga on the piano and then the So Cool Quartet perform but by 8pm I was done for the day. The ship is very roll-y tonight, and I just rigged up a lashing system out of rubber bands to tie together all the nightstand drawer handles six different ways to try to keep them closed. So far so good...but I can hear our next door neighbor’s drawers banging open and slamming shut. Captain D said that it would last for 18 hours (I love that he keeps us informed like that). 

It could be a rough nIght. :-o