Sydney, New South Wales

We spent the night bouncing up and down in 15 to 20 foot seas with 40+ knots of wind getting into Sydney. As soon as we crossed the headlands the seas calmed and we were met with one of the most beautiful harbors in the world. The city sits on a hill at around the corner and as you wind your way around the turns of the bay the city reveals itself slowly until you finally see the iconic Opera House and bridge with the sun shining on them. We couldn't have had a more pleasant entrance to Sydney. The boat is docked past the bridge overlooking the Darling Harbor side and we have to take a short shuttle bus ride to the city center. We went in and started our tour of the city by walking the Botanical Gardens starting at the Opera House and walking up to Hyde park and then around the city back to the Rocks. We found a great little place to get a beer and a burger on the roof of pub in the Rocks overlooking the harbor. Later we had a harbor tour and then dinner at the Opera House with an aboriginal welcome dance followed by the opera "Tosca". It was quite fun. The Opera House has the english translation of the words on a screen above the stage so it turned out to be fascinating and very beautiful to hear as well as fun to actually understand what was going on. We had a similar setup in St. Petersburg, Russia when we went to see Madame Butterfly there but the translation was in Russian so we were no better off then listening to the Italian. :-)
Back to the ship at night. I will post another for tomorrow since we are there another day and have lots of pictures.Read more