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JAMES
After stupid amounts of time on planes and at airports, and after crossing more time zones than is healthy, we have finally made it to Sydney! The flight over from Hong Kong was the first long flight we have done this trip which was subject to neither turbulence nor annoying co-passengers and, having watched all the decent films available on previous flights, we actually managed to get a few hours sleep! I can't say we arrived in Sydney fresh and raring to go - in fact I was anything but fresh having lugged the backpack half way round central Sydney to find a hotel - but at least we weren't desperate to go to sleep straight away! Good job as it was only 10.00am by the time we had found a hotel - the ever classy Travelodge (slightly better location than the one in Slough though)!
Having bought 7 day Sydney Passes at the airport, we pretty much have free use of all the city's transport, including a couple of tourist buses, so we hopped straight on to the Sydney Explorer and settled back for a tour of the city. It's funny how sometimes you just get a really good feel about a place, and both of us straight away loved Sydney. After doing about half the circuit, including going over Sydney Harbour Bridge, we jumped off at the top of the Botanical Gardens. From here the view is stunning. The guidebook promised that Sydney is an impossibly good looking city, and looking across the water to the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and the skyscrapers of the Central Business District, it is hard to imagine many places with such a fantastic setting. Sydney has it, and certainly makes the most of it. Even the approach to the airport comes in over the harbour, as if to give you a free aerial sightseeing tour into the bargain! I absolutely loved it, although I doubt the camera shared the same feelings, having been over worked into taking about 8 million photos in about 15 minutes! And for the first time since Florida (give or take one day in Hong Kong and one in Cayman) we had glorious weather - hardly a cloud in the sky and temperatures in the mid 20's, perfect. Turns out that the past week has been pretty poor weather, so looks like we timed it well!
Since then we have been very diligent tourists. We have wandered round The Rocks, Circular Quay and the Opera House, visited the Aquarium and the Wildlife World (I am sure Katie will talk at length about stroking a Koala!) and booked up to do the Bridge Climb tomorrow morning! In exchange for spending the time spent petting soft and cuddly creatures, I made Katie traipse out to the Sydney Cricket Ground with me yesterday morning in an ill-fated attempt to find some live cricket to watch whilst we are here, and to see the stadium. The force wasn't with us one that one - Australia are currently touring (and losing) in India, there doesn't appear to be any State cricket going on, and even by the time we get to New Zealand, their national side will be playing away in, you guessed it, Australia. Oh well! We did manage to find some cricket on in Hong Kong bizarrely enough - the Hong Kong Sixes - but they wanted about 70 quid to watch the full two day tournament (no one day tickets) and seeing as we could only go to the first day, we decided to pass! And the beach cricket in Cayman was rained off! Dammit, I will find some cricket to inflict on Katie at some point this trip, even if we have to buy a bat and ball and play amongst ourselves on a beach in Borneo...
Off to Bondi for the day in a minute, hopefully the cloud will have burnt off by the time we get there! And then tonight we're going to go and watch a play at the Opera House. A pretty cool way to spend our 2nd anniversary I think!
KATIE
Thank God for a nice smooth plane journey and one in which was actually both slept!! It was so easy to get to the centre from the airport too, definitely what's needed after all the long flights, different time zones and jet lag!!
Sydney - I love it, love it, love it!!!! It's one of the most beautiful places I've been too, and you really cannot fail to be taken aback by the sight of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. They are much closer to each other than either of us thought but other than that pretty much as the pictures look. The views from Mrs Macquaries Chair where we got off the explorer bus were just stunning, the sun was out, the sky was blue and there wasn't a cloud to spoil the view....but it wasn't raining..hooray!! Walking round to Sydney Harbour was a great way to find our feet and get rid of the tiredness we both felt on the bus, although the little flies are very irritating, definitely need to buy fly nets before going to Uluru I think! Booked up for the Bridge Climb in the evening ready for Wednesday and really looking forward to that.
Yesterday was spent walking to the cricket ground - and since writing his blog we have found that there is some cricket on Thursday so James might get his wish yet! Afternoon was devoted to the pure tourist activities of taking the monorail to the Wildlife Centre and Aquarium. Now, I could go on for days about the Wildlife, in particular, the cute and cuddly Koala's which really are as beautiful as you imagine (well, if you're a girl and you think about these kind of things). If you paid to have your photo taken with them (yes, I know, but it was worth every penny and was only about GBP10) then you got to get into the enclosure with them, have a good look, talk to the guides and have your photo taken. Then you could stroke one very gently, and for me that was always going to an impossible opportunity to miss! They only allow one Koala to be stroked on any given day, its restricted to people having their photo taken and you literally only stroke them a few times so they don't get upset, woken up or too used to human contact. The rest of the Wildlife Centre was brilliant too, saw any number of different insects, spiders, Marsupials and had an interesting conversation with one of the guides about Kangaroos and Wallabies! The Aquarium was pretty cool too, but out of the 2 the Wildlife Centre was best value.
Looking forward to seeing Bondi Beach today, sun seems to be coming out so you never know there could be a bit of surfing yet to come today.....!!
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