The next day we woke up at 8am after a luxurious nights sleep in our hotel. We’re staying in the Tankstream Hotel on Pitt Street which is right in the CBD with fantastic access to all the main things we wanted to do. Well done Jane👏
We got ready for the day and headed out onto the wet streets. It had been raining but the forecast looked more promising. We picked up a map from reception and tried to get our bearings. We were heading for the Botanical Gardens with the plan to walk round there and then carry on to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.
Unfortunately, the receptionist told us a fib about there only being one access point to the gardens so we did rather more walking than I’d planned. The Botanical Gardens are pretty large and the sign posts aren’t great so we ended up actually leaving the park in search of a coffee. We tried to find the site of the gorgeous picture in our guide book which had called us here in the first place but the lady in Info said those flowers weren’t out just now and in fact , they’d moved that lovely tree because it was falling down and she couldn’t remember where they’d put it!
Anyway….there were lots of beautiful trees, ferns, roses and unusual plants to look at and some interesting birds too. We saw colourful laurikeets and white ibis are ten a penny round here, basically like pigeons scavenging in the litter bins!
Next we got a better map of the gardens and headed to Mrs Macquarie’s point and chair. Governor Lachlan Macquarie was one of the v early Governors of the colony of New South Wales and basically a fairly decent bloke trying to keep everyone happy (Government back home, military, convicts and Indigenous locals). Later on he lost favour as a group of colonists reported him as being too liberal with the convicts and too generous to the locals. The sandstone chair was carved by convicts for his wife Elizabeth , who liked to gaze out to the bay from this point.
We liked staring at the view here today too, although I suspect a little different today with both the Bridge and the Opera House on fine display. There were lots of other tourists here too including a large group of Korean’s who rushed about madly trying to get their pics. One of them was a little too ambitious and slid off the rock he jumped onto and into the sea, up to his waist in sea water.
Meanwhile, I introduced the Korean’s to sea glass hunting!
We wandered round to the carved sandstone wave rock and then made our way up to a food van where we got a lemonade and sat under the shade of a huge fig tree. Here we got chatting to a nice lady from Brisbane. She’d escaped the incoming Cyclone Alfred to watch her son debut for the state Rugby team. We’ve met several folk from Brisbane now, all starting to worry about what this huge storm would bring. Folk back home have also asked if we’re going to be ok as our next stop is Hamilton Island in Queensland. However, it’s been described as being like us being in W Ireland and the storm happening in Portugal so I think we will be ok. 👍
The cold drink revised us and so we continued our walk all along the waterfront where I did a sketch of the Opera House and Jane read her book. We then walked around to the Rocks where Jane found us The Rocks Cafe to eat at. It was lovely having a meal outside. It was only 4-30pm but the place was busy and the food and service excellent. We even took a slice of Passionfruit Cheesecake and Pecan pie home for pudding later. Yum.
Back at the hotel we relaxed in the air con and I got creative with collage on my sketch of the Opera House and caught up with this blog. Jane meanwhile fell asleep, the 32, 000 steps had nearly broken her.
Where shall we go to next? 