Australia 2016

December 29th 2016

Arrived in Sydney after two vey good flights with Malaysia Airlines. The man sitting next to me, a mental health nurse from Kinabalu, kindly offered to exchange seats so I had a brilliant view of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. There is something so special about seeing iconic landmarks in real life!

 

Charles met me and we had lunch in town then drove to our Airbnb which is a beautiful modern house in open plan Australian style. We are guests of a lovely family who could not have been more welcoming.  Although getting late in the afternoon, I was keen to go to the beach so we went down to Manly and walked along both beaches, the harbour beach and the ocean beach, and the Corso which connects the two. The latter is a long street crammed full of surf shops, burger joints juice bars and pubs as well as small shops selling beach wear, hats , ice cream and frozen yoghurt and so on. Manly gets its name from Governor Phillip's description of the physique of the indigenous people he met here. We then went to sample some local cuisine in the packed restaurants. Jet lag? What's that?

 

December 30th

 

Charles went off for his early morning swim before breakfast whilst I got up more leisurely!

We decided to go over to the city on the famous Manly ferry which takes about forty minutes to travel along the harbour to the city, CBD, central business district, in Aussie speak .Sydney is definitely one of the most beautiful cities I have visited and the ride on the ferry is truly spectacular, passing beach after beach, rocky, tree strewn headlands and wave after wave of exclusive waterfront homes.

 

 

 

The harbour was busy with every conceivable water sport from  parasailing to kayaking, and the huge , gin palace motor boats jostled with much smaller craft as the former jockeyed for moorings for tomorrow's firework display.

 

Our first stop was an introductory walk over the bridge for a good view of the Opera House

 

 

 

before investigating the area known as The Rocks. This was the site of Australia's first European settlement but the trendy, tourism redevelopment bears little resemblance to the squalid place it once was where  ex convicts, sailors and whalers boozed and brawled. As today was an introduction I shall return  later to some of the historic buildings, museums and galleries.

 

Next was the Opera House, Australia's most recognised landmark. Visually it is supposed to reference the billowing white sails of a sea going yacht, but others suggest the architect was thinking of the segments of an orange, and local wags have a different version! However, it is a very striking building with a commanding presence on Circular Quay.

 

 

 

The Royal Botanic Gardens  border Farm Cove, east of the Opera House, were established in 1816 and feature plant life from Australia and around the world. As well as beautiful floral displays they also, of course, have lots of the wonderful trees which I like so much.

 

 

 

Hoping to meet friends on Shelly Beach we took the ferry back to Manly but it was literally a needle in a haystack task, and we had to postpone. On the way back we met this very tame water dragon

 

lying next to a stone sculpture, one of many which line the esplanade.

 

As a perfect end to the day we had dinner at the Bather's Pavilion on Balmoral Beach, run by Australian celebrity chef Serge Deseraux. This picturesque beach (described in the guide as "beaut")is really lovely, the meal was excellent and spoiled only by the necessity of the climb up the near vertical road afterwards! (Though probably a Good Thing after such a treat!)