Despite having been in Sydney for over a week now, we
haven’t yet visited Circular Quay along with some of the main tourist
attractions there. Today we set to put
that right.
We’d hoped to have heard from Motorhome Republic before we
set off but with no fresh emails in my inbox it was not to be. We headed into town and due to being very
lucky to catch a passing bus we were at the quay in no time and instead of the
thunderstorms we’d been warned about, we had brilliant blue skies. We thought we’d better make the most of it
and caught the next ferry to Manly, using our opal cards once more - cheaper
than the fast ferry and we wanted to go slowly anyway to get the best pics of
the harbour! At the other end we
disembarked and enjoyed an ice coffee by the beach before hopping back on the
return ferry. The return journey was
much less busy and we bagged the prime bow-spot to get even better pictures.
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| The outward journey - classic Sydney Harbour shot |
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| A Jet boat - one of many different ways to experience the harbour |
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| Manly Wharf and Marina... we didn't have time to stick around for long as we had much to see back in the City |
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| View of Sydney CBD, assisting in showing the massive scale of this cruise liner. What a gorgeous day. |
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| Bee sculpture in the Botanic Gardens |
Back at Circular Quay, we did a recce for our New Years’ Eve
festivities tomorrow by the Opera House, so we now know exactly where we want
to be and what time we need to get up to be there!
Next to the Opera House are the Botanic Gardens, the oldest
in Australia, where we caught the tourist train for $10 each to do a 25-minute
tour of the whole gardens to save our feet as we intend to cover a lot
more ground today.
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| Had enough yet?! This is a totally different view of the Opera House AND Harbour Bridge from the gardens |
Next stop - The Rocks, a famous historical area of the city
right next to the Harbour Bridge. On the
way there we received a phone call from Motorhome republic – the hire company
called ‘Spaceships’ had sold the vehicle we’d hoped to rent but could offer us
a very similar one for $100 more… the usual story, but we didn’t want to risk
being left without wheels so we said a speedy ‘yes’ and left it with them to
seal the deal.
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| I think those may be the start of tomorrow's firework display?! |
Reaching Sydney Harbour Bridge, you are able to climb one of
the four main pylons to get great views and learn about the design and building
of the famous structure which opened in 1932.
This smaller climb costs only $15 instead of the $250 each it costs to
climb the actual arch just a little higher up to the top! Our location even gave
us a sneaky peak at the pyrotechnics set-up for tomorrow night! And we watched
a massive P&O cruise liner navigate the tight turns out of the
harbour.
It is extremely hot today, in
the mid-30s Celsius, so we’re hoping it cools down a little for tomorrow.
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| What a view! |
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| The view back towards the city and in between, 'the Rocks' |
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| A P&O cruise liner doing the chicane through Sydney Harbour |
To cool down, we treated ourselves to a Happy hour dinner
and beer for only $20 each (about £12) before tearing ourselves away from the
bars. We had forgotten that we needed to
buy cheap camping chairs for tomorrow to survive the day. After some hasty online searching, we found
we only had until 7pm (when Bunnings Warehouse closed) to get a bus across the
city to make our purchase! It was very exciting and tight for time. We arrived
at Bunnings at 645pm and despite being sent around the houses by various staff
members we managed to find their stash of $5 camping chairs and grab two before
the checkouts closed! Leaving at just
past 7pm we’d had enough of traipsing around today, so we ordered an Uber to
get us back to the flat rather than navigating any more bus combinations today.
An early night was required, with bags already packed in
preparation for a long day to see out 2017 tomorrow.....
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