Saunders’ Down Under

The only thing we had on the agenda today was a guided tour of the Sydney Opera House, so we slept in a little and had a slow morning. Left our place just after 9am to head to the Circular Quay area. We walked through beautiful Botanic Park again, stopping to look at statues, different plants and flowers, and saw the cockatiels again, as well as an interesting piece of art of a lady laying on a lounge chair?! In a previous post, there was a photo of a flower display that said Bite Me - this was to advertise a display they had in an area of the park named the Calyx, called Plants that Bite! There we saw a number of interesting plants - including of course, the Venus Flytrap - which catch and devour insects. We left there and headed over to the Conservatory of Music and had a look around there. Today, a number of the students were doing year end recitals, so we went into a couple of the recital rooms to watch. Walking through the park, we saw signs pointing to Government House so followed them to see this beautiful building with equally beautiful gardens - quite spectacular! We the headed to the Opera House for our 12 o’clock tour. The Opera house is an amazing structure which took 16 years to build at a cost of $120 million dollars - a little longer than the estimated 3 years, and a little more expensive than the projected $7 million 😳. It was officially opened by the Queen in 1973. We found out today that there are around a million tiles on the roofs that make up the sails, and the tiles are actually two different colours - white and cream. It was designed by a Danish architect, Jorn Utzon, whose original submission (number 218 of about 230 submissions for the design proposals) was actually tossed aside, until an American architect came on board as one of the judges and decided he liked this particular one. It would be interesting to see what might have ended up in its place had the panel of judges not reconsidered! There are two main theatres in the opera house, one for ballet and opera, the other for symphony and theatre, and both are beautiful with great attention paid to acoustics, both natural and amplified. All of the materials used in the building are from New South Wales, from the cement used in the beams, the granite in the outer floors, and the many kinds of timber used inside the theatres. Truly a beautiful place, and well worth the tour.

We walked along the quay after the opera house and stopped for lunch at an outside cafe. Luckily today there was no storm so there was no requirement to (as the song says) “better run, better take cover”!! 😂😂. After lunch, we walked back to our place for a bit of a rest - all the walking over the past few days started getting to us I think!

So after a good rest, we went back downtown to the Circular Quay and after seeing Santa and his Elves riding bikes and a sleigh, had a lovely dinner at the Searock Grill right beside the harbour. They had Kangaroo tenderloin steak on the menu, so I had to try it, and it was delicious - very lean and tasty! Dave was not quite as adventurous, but he did try a bite of mine! After dinner, we sat on the steps in front of the opera house to watch the Dance Rites Festival - a troupe of Aboriginal dancers performing their native dances. This area of Sydney is quite the happening place on a Saturday night with lots of people at the bars, heading to the opera or mulling around the Quay. We walked around a bit more, took lots of night time photos, then headed back to the hotel to finish packing for our destination tomorrow. Next stop - Alexander Headlands on the Sunshine Coast!もっと詳しく