Ann's Australian Adventure: Sydney

Driving in Sydney is a nightmare! Unfortunately, when we arrived the GPS unit decided to take a break, it was working but sending us around in circles. Add this to being unfamiliar with the area, the winding sometimes poorly marked roads and that it was around 3:00 pm, the beginning of rush hour you can see that we’d be about ready for a rubber room by the time we found the lodge.

The up side to this is we got to see Sydney in it’s element, with all it’s hustle and bustle, along with a lot of the downtown area, even the bridge (4 different times – paying a toll each time we went over it.)

Having said that, once we finally found our hotel we took a deep breath and realized how beautiful the city really was.

After we got settled the next must do was finding something to eat. The receptionist told us about a small store down the road where we could pick up some groceries. With our recent experience driving in the city we decided this would be a good idea. Unfortunately, the prices we’re astonishing! For example – eggs – $7, a very small box of cereal – $6.50, bread $4.50. Not knowing any better and thinking this is just what the costs were we went ahead and bought a few things to get us by. We now had a few essentials but still no real food to make a meal of. Again, we turned to the receptionist who told us about a bunch of eating places a couple of kms away. She suggested that we take a taxi because in order to get there we had to climb the hill of death. Guessing that the taxi would be outrageous (basing this on the cost of food) and knowing that we had to take 2 because they only hold 4 people we decided to walk.

The walk really wasn’t that bad, it was incredibly steep but not overwhelming. On the way up we came across this home all decked out for Halloween.

Earlier in the week as we passed through Scone (NSW, the horse capitol of Australia) we ran across these trick – or – treaters. Halloween is slowly catching on here (much to the chagrin of many residents).

This great little church was tucked away on our route. It’s continually amazing to me all these great buildings that don’t make the travel books that you wouldn’t see unless you happen to be passing by.

Once we got to the top of the hill we walked around to see what our choices were. The area reminded me of New York City, lots of little shops with doors open to the street allowing customers to just walk right in. The costs of food and other things were also reflective of New York as well. Matt and the boys finally decided on Mexican, getting a burrito for $12.50. Hannah wasn’t interested so I walked across with her to a burger place ran by a Japanese couple. It was a tad difficult getting our order in with their accent and me not understanding them. They wanted to know if we wanted chicken salt or regular. It took me about 3 tries to figure out what they were asking. (Chicken salt is big here. You can go in the store and buy all kinds of things with chicken salt). We ended up paying about $9 for hamburger and fries. It tasted great though!

The following day we went into Sydney to see the sights. Like Brisbane, there are several choices for getting into the city. We chose the ferry again. These are some of the pictures we took along the way.

Once we got back on land our first stop was the Sydney Opera House. It’s a beautiful building.

The outside is made of a white tile type material which allows it to change colors depending on the lights shining on it.

The inside is very posh – we were only allowed to walk into the lobby so I can only imagine what the actual seating area looked like.

This is the Sydney Harbor Bridge (the one we crossed 4 different times).

(Why did I put a lamp post in the picture??? – Duh!)

There were lots of school groups around. These little guys looked so cute in their uniforms. The older (high school) groups were wearing blazers and ties. Very sharp. Somehow I can’t picture this ever catching on in the States.

On our way to our next stop we ran into these Aborigine men posing for pictures.

Not what I’d want to do for a job. To each his own, right?

We took a bus over to Darling Harbor where a lot of the city’s main attractions are found. This was quite the adventure. It was much like riding in a New York City cab with all their speeding, stopping, winding through traffic only on a bus level. The drivers are crazy. We’d speed up – FAST, then slam on the brakes, get within inches of cars (really inches!). I' was grateful to finally get off.

This lighthouse is part of the maritime museum. They had all kinds of ships including a destroyer and a submarine. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go in.

On our way to the Sydney Tower, Nicholas and Ian ran into Nicole Kidman.

Actually, it was a wax replica. They had a great time posing with her.

The view from the Sydney Tower was amazing. It gives you a 360 degree view of the city and the surrounding areas. This gave us a whole different perspective on the city.