First Days Down Under: Sydney

We landed in Sydney in the morning. We had arrived 24 hours late, but we had made it after all. We cleared customs, quarantine, collected our bags and took the train into town.

Our hotel was located beside Hyde Park on Elizabeth Street -- one of the main streets in the Central Business District (CBD) of Sydney. The train station was directly across the street from the hotel. How convenient! We checked in, got cleaned up and were ready to do some sightseeing.

One problem. It was pouring rain. This really limited our options. The spectacular harbour views that we were longing for were muted and gray. There would be no one at the beach. It was annoying to just get around. Bummer.

We tried to make the best of it, though. The weather report called for rain for the next two days. We were in Sydney for less than 48 hours, so we had no choice but to endure it. In fact, the television told us that almost all of the major cities in Australia were experiencing unseasonably large amounts of rain. Even if we had arrived in Sydney on time, it would have rained heaps on us anyways. Maybe spending the unexpected day in sunny Los Angeles wasn't such a bad thing anyways.

We decided to go to the harbour anyways. Along the way, we stopped for brunch. We had some crazy awesome Australian hamburgers. They had pineapple, beetroot, bacon, and eggs on them. They were SO TASTY! From now on, I think every hamburger should have beetroot on it.

We walked through the CBD towards Circular Quay. Even though it was raining, there were lots of awnings and pedestrian walkways to protect us along the way, so it was not so bad. When we tried to cross streets though, we would try to run for it. The gutters were filled with huge torrents of water rushing past. We had to step lightly to avoid massive soakers.

It was only about a fifteen minute walk to Circular Quary. From there, we saw the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge (from a distance -- at Circular Quay). We decided that we wouldn't walk up to them for fear of a further soaking. Instead, we took a ferry underneath the bridge and around to Darling Harbour and spent a few hours at the Sydney Aquarium. The Aquarium was really cool. We saw lots of kinds of fish, a croc, turtles, frogs, corals, seals, sharks, rays, and penguins!! Yay penguins!

After the aquarium, we saw a little tourist train driving people along the dock at Darling Harbour. It had a sign advertising for the Lindt Chocolate Cafe. I HAD TO GO. Lindt is my weakness. We went to the cafe and warmed up with some mocha coffees. They were super yummers.

By this point, it was still raining, but not so hard. We were already wet, so we decided to walk back to the hotel through the CBD. Along the way we checked out the shopping malls and food courts while the monorail zoomed by overhead. The Queen Victoria Building is an old Victorian shopping arcade with lots of fancy stores inside. It was definitely pretty.

That night we went for dinner at a food court in Chinatown. I had yummy spicy Malaysian food. I enjoyed it greatly. My sister and dad had Thai food. It was the first time my dad had ever tried Thai food. It didn't really agree with him. It will be a hard task to wean him from bacon and eggs.

The next day, miraculously, it wasn't raining. The skies were still gray and threatening, though. We decided to be careful. We walked up through Hyde Park to the Opera House. The road along Hyde Park is lined with lovely old English-style government buildings and palm trees. We snapped some nice pictures of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. From there, we walked to The Rocks and had a beer in a pub. We continued to wander around the Rocks and snap pictures in the area underneath the Bridge. For lunch, we went to a seafood cafe near Circular Quay. My sister and dad had fish and chips while I had sushi. Sadly, they weren't very good.

After lunch, we plunged ourselves into the crowds that were swarming around the Sydney CBD. There were so many people walking around! I enjoy walking through crowds and people watching, so it was fun for me.

Time was limited though. We had to make our way back to the hotel quickly in order to catch our train to the airport. We were flying to the Whitsundays Coast. Hopefully, up north, we could escape the rain.

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Noosa, Australia