Harbour Bridge and the Opera House

Ben with the Sydney sights!
see all photos »

We landed in Sydney amongst grey clouds and Japanese tourists. Despite the hefty quarantine queues, we managed to obtain a "shuttle" ride from the airport to Kings Cross (the area we were staying in). Before we left, however, the driver of said "shuttle" had to make hasty negotiations with a traffic warden who was writing him a ticket for being parked in the 'shuttle bus' spaces! This is why im using inverted commas above "shuttle" to describe this "reputable" cab driver!

Anyway, $20 got us both across town to our Formule 1 motel with a Harbour Bridge view. More by luck than judgement, we seem to have booked a hotel within walking distance (just!) of all the major tourist features of central Sydney. Our first glimpse of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge came simultaneously, having rounded the corner from Mrs Macquarie's Chair (a view point of Sydney and the harbour area). They were every bit what we were expecting, and more as the sun came our especially for us to get some nice pictures! We then walked round the botanical garden's edge to get up close to the Opera House, and take a tour round the insides. Photo's were not allowed inside, but there were 5 theatres, each with their own use (one for opera, another for drama, concerts, etc). We followed this with a walk along the bridge and more photos flowed. We topped this day off with a walk through the Rocks market, which was pretty impressive and we picked up a few souvenirs along the way.

The Opera House.
see all photos »

The following day we visited the art gallery, which was free to enter (and that was overpriced!) but sadly the exhibits were a bit too 'arty' and pretentious for us and we left a bit confused as to how they get away with it! Maybe we went with the wrong mind frame... Anyway, in the afternoon we walked through the botanical gardens and encountered tons of grey haired fox bats hanging in the trees, flying around, and generally making a deafening noise overhead. Once we navigated our way through the occasional 'bombs' from above (think about it!) we went to Chinatown and had a pretty cheap and pretty decent meal in one of the many restaurants there.