Sydney 1

So here we are in Sydney. We’re staying in a neighbourhood called Newtown, in a hostel quaintly called the Billabong Gardens. It has the loudest guests we’ve come across so far. It’s not up to the standard of the Youth Hostel we stayed in in Cairns, but it’s OK (we even have a fridge and TV in our room!) However the kitchen is little medieval and there is nowhere to sit and relax except in our room. Newtown is best described as “edgy” - both by the guidebooks and by me! It’s definitely an alternative place with some extremely colorful inhabitants. We had supper tonight next to a church which evidently welcomed all and sundry and amongst the interesting congregation who we saw go in were a black drag queen and a tall, gangly elderly man covered in tattoos (face and all) with ground-length dreadlocks. There are literally hundreds of restaurants in a 4-5 block area near our hostel (and I thought Saskatoon was well-stocked!) - many of them Thai. So far\ we’ve eaten Thai ( at the Thai-tanic), Nepalese and African food - all delicious! We have figured out the transport system and have bought a week pass that lets us go pretty much wherever we want by bus, train and/or ferry. Of course our first stop was at Circular Quay where both the Bridge and the Opera House are. We did a tour of the Harbour by boat to get our bearings. It’s the most amazing place - there are many, many arms of the Harbour (each with its own sailing club as far as we could see!) and the skyline is incredible. We also put our noses into the Botanic Gardens (will definitely go back) and were amused with the welcome signs: “Please walk on the grass. We also invite you to smell the roses, hug the trees, talk to the birds and picnic on the lawns.” We’ll go back to do a tour of the Opera House and climb one of the pylons of the bridge. There isn’t anything on at the Opera House that we would both enjoy, and I discovered that afternoon tea there with operatic entertainment was $200, so the tour will have to do!
Day 2 took us by ferry to the Maritime Museum (guess how many photos were taken!) There is an extremely good replica of Cook’s Endeavour which we went through (note Mrs. Hartley without a hat for the benefit of her daughter! The hat is DREADFUL, I agree, but it does keep the sun off) as well as a re-furbished barque called the James Craig which we also went through (a somewhat Twilight Zone-ish experience!) Our guide was an East Indian gentleman who was very enthusiastic about the ship, but had a fairly strong accent which we had to work hard to understand. When we got below decks, there were a number of very scantily-clad young women running around being pursued by men with cameras (including John!) They had apparently rented the ship from 9-11 that morning, but had failed to turn up until about noon, so had to put up with tourists running through their attempts to film underwear ads!
Day 3 - ferry to Manly which is a northern neighbourhood which you can get to by ferry. There are amazing views of the Sydney landmarks from the ferry and we had a nice relaxing day there. We walked up to the surf beach which was jam-packed with people, so we opted to sit on the gentle side of the headland where we could doze and read and eat ice cream and watch the sail boats racing in the harbour. We couldn’t resist asking a friendly lady to take our Christmas photo with the Christmas tree and the palm trees in the background (sorry to rub it in, guys!) It is very weird to think it’s Christmas when it’s so hot and everyone is talking about “summer” - can’t quite get our heads around it!