Sydney

Today we had a full day in Sydney. It was nice to get our bearings yesterday and had a general idea what we wanted to do.

We had a little sleep in and then headed back on the bus and headed to check out Darling Harbour.

We took the a different bus this time and went through the suburbs to get into city. We walked a few blocks and saw Darling Harbour. From there we took the public ferry to Luna park and kids spent a few hours at Luna Park. They had some newer and bigger rides and Inara wasn’t tall enough to do the rides without parents and we didn’t really want to pay for another ticket. (Couldn’t just buy per ride like in Melbourne).

The kids were given word search and maze books for the trip. The word search also had quotes and the quote the other day was “There are no strangers here, only friends you haven’t met”. Since Inara was unable to go on some rides without adults, I befriended a lovely young couple, Clara and Josh, who took Inara on a roller coaster twice. Clara and Josh were there for his 21st bday. It made a Inara’s day and we didn’t leave in tears.

From there we took the ferry back to circular Quay and then jumped back on another public ferry for a longer ride to Manly beach. The day has become sunny and perfect weather.

Manly is a busy seaside suburb of Sydney's northern beaches, where a small apartment can easily cost $2 million to buy and a waterfront property upwards $of9 million. It was touristy, smelled like salt water and all the locals had dogs.

There was a busy walking track to Shelly beach, which adjoins the coastal marine reserve and cabbage tree aquatic reserve. The kids played on the rocks and then we sat on the beach for a bit before we headed back to try to get a sunset. No sunset, but got some Baskin Robbin’s icecream instead.

Another ferry ride got us back to the Sydney CBD and then a bus back to the hotel/pub. Had a lovely pub dinner, played cards while waiting for food and off to bed.

Things to know about Sydney:
The public transport seems a bit it more frequent than Melbourne
You can use your credit card to get on and off, (rather than needing an opal card) and it will calculate where you have been that day and charge what is needed. It’s a good and easy system to use, other than the kids as kids are free on the bus and trams but not the ferry.Read more