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| Sydney Bridge and ferry |
Oh what a day we had. A long day, beginning with an early, but silent sail into the Sydney Harbour. We're talking like about a 5:30am entry, with final docking by 7am. We have never had a silent approach as Barbara, our port lecturer, has always given an excellent commentary as we approached either Circular Quay or Darling Harbour.
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| Circular Quay |
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| Typical ferry |
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| Harbour highrises |
Apparently, the local residents must have finally gotten tired of the noise, since so many ships dock here. We will, however, have a scenic commentary on our way out tomorrow.
The disembarkation procedures went fairly smoothly in our opinion. Group numbers were called to go off, but not in any particular order. We were told not to block the gangway or stand in the stairwells waiting our turn. No problem for us, because we went to breakfast in the dining room like we always do.....only earlier at 7am. We knew it would not matter if we went well after our number was called, as long as we did not go before they called it. Since we would not be able to come back onboard for awhile, we wanted to leave at a later hour, taking what we needed for the day.
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| The new White Bay Cruise Terminal |
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| Inside White Bay Cruise Terminal |
As it turned out, the letters with our names and the number were never collected, as sometimes they are not. After weaving through a Disneyland-like line in the terminal, we met with the official, and were cleared in a matter of minutes.
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| Leaving already??? |
Guess who finally got off today? The Russian "priest", aptly named Rasputin by fellow guests. Last night at dinner, we witnessed him draining wine from nearby glasses that went undrunk, filling his plastic bottle, then sharing it with some ladies near his table. Can you believe this....they drank it. Then he proceeded to take whatever he did not consume from his meal, and put it in a bag and walk out of the restaurant. What in the world does he do with these tablescraps? Anyway, today while at the officials counter, he was led away and into a room by several agents, and never came out the entire time we and our friends were there. One of our buddies said he was slightly disappointed because he will not have anything to talk about now. He has seen the strange behaviour this man had when he was doing pushups in the Crows Nest. While he was down on the floor, he was eating dropped peanuts off of the carpet. The assistant beverage manager had to tell him to stop doing that or leave the lounge. Like we said, really out there, but gone now.
There were some pretty pricey tour today such as taking a seaplane ride with a lunch for $670. For a mere $360, you could climb the Sydney Bridge and take a walk through the Rocks area. How about an evening at the Opera House to see Carmen? Well, the best seats went for $335. and the cheaper ones sold for $255. The most reasonable was a ride to the Blue Mountains with a lunch for $195....a bargain. We have done that tour twice in past years, and many other city tours. So today, we planned to walk the town on the Circular Quay side.
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Two ships docked
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The complimentary shuttle worked out fine. They were running six buses to George Street and Alfred, right at the beginning of Circular Quay. The ride took only 15 minutes, even though we had to cross the neat Pyrmont Bridge to get there. From Circular Quay, where the Rhapsody of the Seas (RCI) was docked, we walked to the Opera House to take tons of photos. The weather was not the best. The sky was completely gray with rain clouds, although it was still humid and not cold at all. Again, packing those umbrellas guaranteed that no rain would fall, at least until tonight.
We began our way past the bustling ferry docks of Circular Quay. That is where we had been told we could purchase a senior ticket for all of the local buses and ferries at the train station. Anywhere we wanted to go for 24 hours for $2.50 Australian.
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| Rhapsody of the Seas (RCI) at Overseas Passenger Terminal (Darling Harbour) |
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| Wall art |
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| Two icons of Sydney |
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| Skyline of downtown Sydney |
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| Waterside theater screen at Farm Cove |
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| Cave rocks along the way |
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| Sailboat |
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| Jet boat ride |
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| Rocks in the harbor |
The kicker was that we believe it may be for Aussies only, even though we were told that the tickets may be checked for the proper date. Being that we were going to walk, which we really needed to do, we decided against it. If anyone would be caught doing something wrong, it would be us.
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| Bill and the Opera House |
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| Tiles on the Opera House roof |
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| Promenade around the Opera House |
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| Frontside of the Opera House |
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| Rules for the workers |
So we continued walking around the outside of the Opera House, and through the Botanic Garden Gates around the back.
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| Bottle tree |
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| Choo Choo Train in the Botanic Garden ($10) |
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| Government House in the gardens |
Spending the majority of the morning in the park, we made our way to Mrs. Macquarie's Point and Chair, which we have only done by bus on prior trips. There was a Communist demonstration happening on the point, even though it was fairly quiet with a handful of young Asian people. This has to be a very popular spot for the Asian tour groups, because we were surrounded with buses full of them. One nice thing is that they added vibrant colors to our photos as they tend to dress in modern and chic clothing.
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| Many Oriental groups touring Sydney at Mrs. Macquarie's Chair |
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| Just like Bill at The Chair |
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Macquaire Wall
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Watching our time, we continued to the garden shop in the center of the Botanic Garden. This is where we spoke to the park's docents who were full of interesting information.
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| Pair of ducks |
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| Resembles our American pintail |
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| Mary Ann & Asian bamboo |
They commiserated with us for the fact we were stuck at White Bay Terminal, which used to be the new automobile dropoff pier. Not the best place for so many passengers to get into town easily. The ladies also told us that the old temporary pier in Darling Harbor, Barangaroo, was sold to developers who were constructing hotels, condos, more shopping malls, and more importantly, a casino.
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| Palm Grove Garden Shop |
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| Tropical flower |
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| Kauri pine tree |
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| Kauri pine tree |
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| Dahlias |
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| Bunya bunya tree....we have one at home |
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| Bunya bunya tree....we have one at home |
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| Best place to relax |
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| Lion's Gate |
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| Native palms |
Always a big money-maker in large cities. We asked about the fruit bats that used to live in these gardens. They told us that all of them had to be gathered and re-located, due to the fact they were destroying ancient groves of native trees in the park. Besides that, they were messy with their nasty droppings. We thanked them for their help, and we were on our way to continue our explorations.
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| Aboriginal art |
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| Artist's vision of waves |
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| Buildings on Macquarie Street |
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| Australian raven |
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| Flowers and hedges |
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| Tropical Center...Pyramid Glasshouse |
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| Pair of ibis |
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| Banded and tagged ibis |
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| Elephant foot tree |
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| Leaving Mrs. Macquarie's Point |
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| Rocky shoreline |
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| Ibis |
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| Carved tree trunk |
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| Museum of Sydney |
We exited the park at the gate near the Intercontinental Hotel, then walked downhill towards George Street.
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| Martin Place |
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| Many flowers, but way too expensive |
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| Pyramid of flowers |
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| Clock tower |
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| Martin Place is closed to traffic |
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| Painted rhino? |
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| Queen Victoria Building |
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| Old clock inside the QVB |
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| Tiled floors of the QVB |
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| Colorful cookies |
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| Pitt Street Mall |
Throngs of locals were in the streets during the lunch break, either going out or getting fast food. Several closed off streets house major stores that you can find around the world. Even though we were not interested in any souvenier shopping, it is always fun to watch those who are. In this city, there are thousands of folks shopping, mostly locals.
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| Woolworths Department Store |
Making our way to Woolworth's, a convenient all purpose store, we checked out the prices of sodas and room snacks. We need to mention that the Aussie dollar is quite close in value to the US dollar. The only kicker is that everything.....everything is double the price here. A medium bottle of Coke was $4.50 Australian dollars in a local 7-Eleven. Not wanting to pack heavy bags with us to lunch, we decided to come back tomorrow and do some grocery shopping.
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Looking for a good pizza place
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| Taking a photo so we do not forget where it is. |
Lunch was on the agenda, and since it was getting to be past 2pm, we needed to find someplace qjuickly, in case they closed at 3pm. Several years ago, we dined in an semi-outdoor Italian cafe in the Rocks. But since then, we have had trouble finding it. So today, we decided to search endlessly, assuming it was still there, because their pizza was the best.
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| This was the best...Caminetto Ristorante Italiano in the Rocks |
And find it, we did. Caminettos was the name, and the location was on a narrow street behind the main road that goes through the Rocks. We were in pizza heaven by ordering a large margherita pizza with two large Victoria Bitters beers. It was not cheap, by any means, but well worth it. It was really great to sit and relax after all the hiking too.
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| Patio dining |
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| Missed the lunch rush |
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| Best local beer |
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| Large margherita pizza |
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| Great crust, sauce and cheeses |
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| Carved soldier at the Rocks |
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| Historic building |
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| Used to be a prison |
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| Sidewalk cafes |
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| The Rocks area |
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| More harbor apartments |
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| Yachts on the Parramatta River |
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| Back to White Bay Terminal |
By 4pm, we joined the shuttle which had us back to the terminal in less than 20 minutes. Not bad, we think. We spent the remainder of the afternoon downloading pictures, catching up with news, and reading. Dinner was going to be fun tonight as we had company coming.
Former tablemate and great friend, Martha, was a visitor today, along with friends Greg and Heo. Since there were so many in the group, we divided into two groups to share their company. In hind sight, we could have all fit at our table, because two of our couples did not make it to dinner. However, the arrangements were out of our hands, and we were pleased as ever to welcome Martha and the arts and crafts instructor, Maureen, to our table. We spent a wonderful evening catching up on our comings and goings with each other, sharing ship gossip, and having a great time. We sure miss Martha on this cruise, although, she may be back next year with husband Bob. The time flew by, and we were exhausted, glad to get between those cool, white sheets.
Tomorrow, we plan another marathon day of walking, but this time in the darling Harbour area, followed with some shopping, maybe. We'll be leaving by 6pm, so will need to watch our time carefully.
