NSW - Sightseeing in Sydney

4 Jan

Today we went into town for some sightseeing – unfortunately after the 40 minute ferry and 10 minutes of walking around, Ev realised that she didn’t bring her camera with!

We stopped off at the observatory and took a look around all the amazing gadgets and information they had on display. Next stop was the Queen Victoria Building Mall, where we walked around the shops and looked at the architecture, which was stunning. Next we walked past the Town Hall and St Andrew’s Cathedral before heading on to Hyde Park where they have a monument and reflective pool for the WWII soldiers. As we were on our feet pretty much the whole day we headed on to the Botanical Gardens for a sit down before heading home.
Sally made yummy lamb chops for dinner.

5 Jan

As the weather was lovely today we headed down to the beach and Marc went for a run, as he was feeling a little better.

We headed into town, at around 5:30 where we met up with Scott and some of the guys from NYE for a drink at the pub before heading on to the Spanish Quarter to meet up with Sally, Belinda & Aaron (also from our Africa safari). It was really good seeing them again and catching up.

Ev thinks she’s starting to get Marc’s cold – thanks Marc :D

6 Jan

As our Sydney trip was coming to an end soon we decided to make a full day of the city.

1st stop was the Rocks Market, which was the nicest part of Sydney for us, with cobbled streets and original shop fronts – i.e. no bright lights and lots of character. The market is full of handicrafts and souvenirs, which is fun to browse through. We bought a spray painting of Australia’s Ayres Rock – it was pretty cool watching this guy spray paint free hand and create such interesting pictures.

We then climbed the Pylon on the Harbour Bridge. We decided that we weren’t going to climb the actual bridge as it costs $165pp and you can’t even take your camera up with you! The Pylon only cost us $9 each and there was a museum inside and the views from the top were just as spectacular as you’d get from the top of bridge – and you could take your own pictures!

We then headed back to Rocks, and found this little Irish shop with a coffee shop in the back garden. Even though we were in a busy little area this place felt like it was in the middle of nowhere, What made us go into this shop was the sign outside saying “Fresh Scones made daily, 1pm”, and with the time being just after 1pm we couldn’t resist. It was so nice and peaceful too. So we placed our order of scones, a cheese toasty on Soda bread with some Barry’s Tea – just lovely.

We then caught a bus to the Spanish Quarter and walked from there to the Chinese Gardens, they were really nice but you could see all the sky rise buildings beyond the walls and you could hear all the traffic too.

After we took a walk through Paddy’s Market full of kitch (tat) stuff, not as good as Rocks, and then went on to Chinatown for a cold drink.

On our way home we diverted to Hyde Park so we could take some pictures and then on to the Botanical Gardens and the Mrs MacQuarie’s chair. We discovered that there was a pool overlooking the Naval port. As it was so hot we decided to pay the $5.20 for a swim, this was so refreshing although it would have been more refreshing if it had been a fresh water pool. This was an Olympic size pool at 50m, and we managed quite a few lengths. The pool was set up with about 8 lanes – professional, fast, medium, slow, and warm-up. We went in the warm-up lane and were constantly being overtaken by people in the slow lane ;)

The weather changed when we had finished our swim and got really blowy so we headed on to Starbucks for a Chai Tea – we can’t believe that they don’t have yummy ginger biscuits out here, it just isn’t the same. Starbucks is the new Mcdonalds for us – we have to have one everywhere we go to work out the value of the currency;) Of course, everywhere is way cheaper than the UK!!

7 Jan

It’s official Ev has caught Marc’s cold – great L

Didn’t do too much today…

We went to the Sailing Club for some drinks with Crystal & Pete. It was really rainy but as it was still warm we had a walk around the town before heading back to the apartment.

Marc discovered that Scott had a PSP so that was the end of Marc for a few hours ;)

We ended up watching 3 back-to-back episodes of the TV series 24… We’re now hooked ;)

8 Jan

More planning today & PSP playing for Marc… and more of 24

As we were cooped up in the house for most of the morning we decided to grab some pancakes/crepes for lunch and then made some yummy pasta bake for dinner – it’s so nice to be able to make meals again but we won’t have this luxury for much longer.