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Our second day in Sydney involved another very early start to return the car to Avis before we had to start feeding the meter again.
This enabled us to catch the 8.10 ferry across to Manly where the locals were just beginning to surface. Surf dudes were negotiating the waves and seem to spend more time waiting for the appropriate wave to come along or falling off their surf boards than doind the Hawaii 5 O bit. Again I had to restrain Ian from rushing in to the surf, instead coaxing him to the Blue Wave cafe for breakfast, to give him a chance to recover.
The Australians don't do things by halves. We chose scrambled eggs, bacon/salmon and toast, absolutely delicious but what a plateful! Lots of the cafes offer the option of gluten free doorstep thick toast which is a real treat. The gf bread/rolls on board Oriana are variable depending where they were put on board - rolls from Southampton, toast from Hong Kong and, currently, strange white squidgy lumps of warm white dough balls from Brisbane. We sat and watched the 'beautiful people' of Manly going about their daily routine and felt quite at home! Reminded us of Calpe. Breakfast seems to be quite a social occasion and there were several groups of people having breakfast meetings overlooking the beach in the cafe, can't be bad. Lots of yummy Mummys taking the kids to school along the promenade then returning for their daily jog whilst pushing trendy 3 wheeler buggies and often with a dog in tow as well - even a beagle, who had no time to stop and sniff and there certainly weren't any discarded bags of cold chips for him to snaffle, even if he had been allowed to stop. Instead of ladies who do lunch there were groups of power walkers pounding the promenade. It helps to have a fantastic climate year round, but it is not cheap to live in Manly!
We had a busy schedule to see as much of Sydney as we could so we headed back on the ferry to the city - free wifi on all Sydney ferries meant we could update our emails and post the Brisbane blog. Quick stop back to the ship - just as well because we realised we had forgotten to give back the Garmin GPS device, back to the Avis office and off to the monorail.
Public transport is excellent in most of the cities we have visited and Sydney's was no exception. The monorail passes most of the major sights and our first stop was Sydney Fish Market. What is it about us and fish markets??? Must be the Calpe influence, although this one was on a much larger scale. There was every conceivable type of seafood on sale to buy fresh, but most people had come to have lunch at one of the many restaurants, all of which had outdoor seating around the harbour.
In the enormous food hall we were met by the amazing sight of loads of stalls selling cooked seafood as well as oysters, sushi, you name it, it was available. We were unable to resist, despite the enormous breakfast- so we shared a regular (would have loved to have seen the large) portion of garlic prawns and chips out on the dockside, in the, by now, hot sun. The seagulls, as ever, were hovering expectantly, but now it was Ian & Janey shouting 'mine, mine, mine' (hope you've all seen Finding Nemo otherwise this will be wasted on you).
Next stop was Darling Harbour, another lovely waterfront which has been tastefully redeveloped with museums, a convention centre, cafes, bars, shops etc. Close by we visited Paddy's Market and old warehouse containing dozens of stalls selling hokey T shirts, UGG boots and other assorted Aussie souvenirs which were half the price of those in the shops in the main shopping areas.
After 2 very early starts we were flagging and decided to head back towards the Rocks via Chinatown (all Chinatowns are pretty much the same) via the monorail. We spent a frustrating 20 minutes locating the station in a small shopping mall only to find it was closed so decided to walk, hopefully via a wine shop to use up our $AUS.
Alcohol is only sold in 'bottle shops' - could we find one??? No chance. Eventually saw a pub offering bottle sales so stepped inside to inspect more closely - very kindly the lady pointed us in the direction of a wine shop across the street where she assured us we would pay a lot less - not before Janey had left her purse on the bar!! There was no money in it, just a credit card and we soon discovered it was missing, at the recommended bottle shop; quick detour to the pub for said purse. Was it a senior moment or were we just knackered??? You decide!
Two bottles of wine later we toddled back to the ship for a well earned rest, feet up, glass in hand watching the world go by and the people walking up and over the Sydney Harbour Bridge like a procession of ants and paying £80 for the privilege! The sailaway at 6.30 was quite special - all shipping from tiny cruisers to large ferries and barques came to a halt as Oriana inched away from the harbourside, reversed slowly to port towards the bridge and sailed past the Opera House. It seemed a lot of people had met up with friends and relatives, or had been staying with them and had come onboard for the journey back to Southampton, so there were lots of goodbyes shouted from the ship and quay and flag waving.
And so off to New Zealand, where we sail into Milford Sound after 2 days at sea. As we write this on February 26 it is noticeably cooler at 39* south - equivalent to Menorca in the northern hemisphere - 19c, with a force 5 wind and too chilly for us to sit out!! At yet another Gala Party (wine was shocking!) last night the captain said we would have time to sail into 2 other fjords as well as Milford so we are hoping the weather will be OK and the cloud doesn't come down.
We are now 13 hours ahead of GMT having put the clocks forward 2 hours in the last couple of days, always at midday. We are wondering if this is having an effect on sleep patterns - we were both wide awake for 4 hours last night.
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