Sydney. What an amazing city!
2011-12-30
The first three days in Sydney have been wonderful. At first, I was a little weary and I had my expectations set low. I figured Sydney would be like Vancouver... a beautiful city, but not much going on. Well just when I thought I had proved my point... We went to the beach.
The weather so far has been amazing. Sometimes cloudy which makes siteseeing amazing, but by the afternoon it always seems to burn off and we're left wandering around in the sunshine.
Visually the city is very pretty, of course the Opera House (which I have no shortage of pictures), the bridge and the city itself is clean with semi modern architecture. It has a very Vancouver feel, some hills, windy roads and lots of coastline.
I started the trip by waking up at 5AM the first morning and headed down to the Circular Quay to grab some pictures. Well worth the effort. There was no one there and I was able to grab some amazing shots!
After regrouping we went back down to the Cicrular Quay and took a ferry around to the Aquarium. Yes, they have a lot of fish. Yes, they have some sharks. But oh dear, they also have traffic jams of annoying strollers and the aquarium is laid out in a one way path. So you get stuck... and you get stuck. We found ourselves pushing our way through the mobs of families who were at a standstill. They even have people on loud speakers tell people to walk left, stand right. But nope, everyone insists on standing where they want. We thought we would have to wait in line to get tickets, but Brad had a great idea to walk 50 ft. to the tour booth where we got tickets for a little cheaper and we didn't have to wait in line. Score!
Yesterday we hopped on a ferry and went to Manly beach. A beautiful beach about a 30 min. ferry ride away. It was pretty cool, very busy, but that isn't want changed my mind about Sydney.
Today we met up with a friend who took us on a little 2 hour hike from Coggee Beach to Bondi Beach. Beautiful. Now I see why people would want to live here. The beaches are amazing... beautiful people, great weather, and all only minute away from downtown. Manly was beautiful but it seemed distant due to the ferry ride, even though I think you can drive there pretty quick.
We went to Iceberg, a Surfer's club or something... all I know is that we had to scan our drivers license to get access. Anyone within X miles can only go there if they pay or become members. Visitors outside of that radius can enter for free. We ate some expensive food (which we are getting used to cause it is so pricey down here) and watched the surf.. and the pool.
Yes, there was an ocean side pool. I went down and did a couple of laps in the freezing salt water... but totally worth it. Amazing.