Sydney Visit 2018

Graham Parker on 06 January 2018
On the drive down to Sydney from the Blue Mountains we stopped off in Penrith (bared no resemblance to the UK town) for some lunch and a spot of shopping. I had the experience of my shoes falling apart while walking through Leura, so was looking for replacements, and had another snack of the highest quality.

We had a quiet day New Year’s Eve. We wanted to visit the Titanic Exhibition, which was very good, and even though the film had brought much to life, I hadn’t known of many of the other stories that were displayed. They also had a Virtual Reality Zone where you could don the VR viewer and literally dive the Titanic and explore the decks, all very interesting and entertaining, but not used to the experience I must admit to feeling quite nauseous and 10 minutes was more than enough.

We had friends and I had clients visiting Sydney at the same time, and had arranged to meet at various times through the week, and on New Year’s Day, I had arranged a surprise for my wife where we met our best man from our wedding almost 35 years ago, who was visiting family in Sydney. It was great to see them again, and have a catch up over lunch at Darling Harbour. The city was relatively quiet on New Year’s Day, only the larger department stores were open, prime conditions for some retail therapy.

We had arranged to meet friends to go for a hike from Spit Bridge to Manly. The weather was ideal for walking, we set away on the bus (Opal Cards an essential) for the ride over the Harbour Bridge to Spit Bridge (yes, it really is a bridge), and it was open when we arrived to allow some yachts to enter the sheltered harbour.

We had a lovely long walk which took around three hours to walk around the headland, passing many small beaches crowded with people out enjoying the summer sunshine. The walk ends at Manly, right in front of the ferry terminal, and a short walk right through the centre of the town brings you to the Ocean. The beach that day was packed, and the weather was glorious. After another fantastic lunch and a couple of beers (it would be rude not to) we took a late ferry back to Sydney, and collapsed for the night. The hike-o-meter giving another high step reading.

Out and about we took a drive to Coogee down the coast, south of Sydney. Another seaside town with plenty of cafes and shops to browse through and an impressive boardwalk, where we happened by bad luck to get caught in a downpour, sadly without an umbrella. Thankfully it passed quickly and we were able to walk to the restaurant at Coogee Pavilion, without getting too wet, for another good quality meal of local caught octopus and salad.

Though on our first visit to Sydney we managed to do the Bridge climb, we had never actually walked over the bridge. So, we decided to do just that on our last day. We got an early start and made our way to the bridge walkway entrance on The Rocks. Our timing was perfect, reaching the pylon entrance just after opening, there were no queues. We climbed the 200 steps to the top, to see Sydney, the Harbour, and the Opera House laid out before us. After taking the ubiquitous selfies and several more of the Opera House we walked to the centre point of the bridge for even more photos of the Opera House, as if you could ever take enough. I’ve walked over the Tyne Bridge many times, but this was colossal by comparison, amazing engineering and scale which you don’t really appreciate until you are on it.

On a weekend, The Rocks holds a market. We have been lucky enough to visit several times but still stopped to browse at the stalls, again stopping for lunch. Have you guessed, food played a major part of this trip. After lunch we took a walk through the Botanical Gardens to Macquarie Point for yet another view of the Opera House, this time perfectly framed by the bridge behind.

After some last-minute shopping for souvenirs we had our final dinner in a local café serving excellent food and well kept, tasty beer. Then all too soon we had to pack, set the alarm for 'early' and get back to the airport for our flight to Hong Kong.

The weather was cooler than we thought it may be, though on the day we left we could feel the temperature rising, eventually reaching a whopping 45 degrees. Slip, slap, slop, slide without a doubt.