Posts Tagged With: Sydney

A Bridge Too Far?

Posted on March 15, 2025 by julieallen36

Today was our last day in Sydney and we felt the need to get up closer to a couple of her icons. No, not Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman but the Bridge and the Opera House.

We set off early in the cool breeze of Sunday morning and strolled through the Rocks area where there was a nice arty market going on. It was very busy and there were some tasteful stalls selling art, food, crafts etc etc.

We were already under part of the Sydney Harbour Bridge but it was high above us and so we had to study several maps to find our way up. It was all rather confusing and looked like it might be quite a climb. We had no intention of climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge! Lots of people (Sue!) have encouraged us to do this but it’s not for us. I’m still feeling wobbly after the train journey and don’t like heights much at the best of times. Jane meanwhile was put off by the fact that you can’t take your own camera up there!! There are a variety of different climbs you can do. For example the Summit Tour will take you up the Upper Arch to the peak where you get a 360 degree view of Sydney. You then come back down on the arch on the other side of the bridge. It takes 3 hours and is 1332 steps. Or you could choose the ‘Summit Insider’ which takes just 2.5 hours and is only 1002 steps through the mesh of ironwork of the lower arch and back. Or you could choose to do the Burrawa- Aboriginal Climb (same as the Summit but hearing about an Aboriginal perspective on the bridge. Finally you could do ‘The Ultimate’ climb taking you across the entire span of the Bridge from South to North and back again. This takes 3.5 hrs and is 1621 steps. To be honest, that’s another reason why Jane and I didn’t do it- how would you choose?!

Anyway, meanwhile luckily I found us a lift to take us up to the pedestrian walkway at road level! How happy were we😀. There were lots of people doing the walk in both directions and others out for a jog who seemed to think we were a bit of a nuisance. The views over the edge of the harbour and city skyline are fantastic even from this level as we walked over the water and back again.

To celebrate our accomplishment we went back to The Rocks and found the oldest bar in Sydney- The Fortune of War which has been here since 1828. We had two schooners of 150 Lashes beer by James Squire which was very refreshing indeed. But the pub as a whole was a bit of a dive full of ‘Bogan’s’. So we went back to the Rocks Cafe for lunch but it was v busy today so we had to eat inside, upstairs which wasn’t quite the same.

Now we felt a bit hot and weary so we went back to the hotel for a blast of air con and a rest. After a couple of hours we headed out again, this time to explore more of the gorgeous Opera House. By now it was about 5-30pm and unfortunately, we hadn’t done our research and hadn’t realised that you can’t actually go inside the Opera House unless you have a ticket for an event or are in an organised tour. We’d missed our opportunity for that, so this was the third time Jane’s visited and still hasn’t been inside to admire the architecture!

Anyway, we wandered around trying to take arty photos of the sails but what we really wanted to see was the light show that takes place 3 x most nights. This takes place on the smaller set of sails and the best viewing spot is the ‘patio’ at the top of the famous steps. The show is called ‘Badu Gili -Healing Spirit‘. It celebrates the work of local and International First Nations artists and lasts just 6 mins. It was indeed very beautiful to watch the various projections make animals, sealife, botanicals and people ‘dance’ across the sails.

Once the show was over, we made our way back along the harbour side past the buzzing Opera Bar and said goodbye to the sparkling Sydney skyline.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Australia, Sydney | 4 Comments

Bus to Bondi

Posted on March 13, 2025 by julieallen36

Sorry once again for the radio silence. We’ve been busy having various ‘adventures’ in Hamilton Island. I can tell you more about those in due course but for now thought we’d catch up with Sydney.

So, back on day 3 in Sydney we decided to try and be a bit more relaxed. Today we were off to visit Bondi Beach and we’re going on the bus! Hurrah a new mode of transport. We caught the 333 from Circular Quay which was ready and waiting for us and because it was early, we easily got a seat. Today was Saturday so we’d noticed that the CBD was very quiet. During the week, the bars get busy after work- just like the good old days back in the UK!

I traced our route on my phone so I could work out where we needed to get off. We went through the very busy Bondi Junction. There was a huge queue of people waiting to get on as the alternative way to get to the beach is to catch the train and then hop on our bus.

Bondi Beach is huge and we wanted to get off at one end where the Icebergs Swimming Pool is. It gets its name because it’s famous for people swimming all year round. Jane wasn’t keen because the water looked ‘dirty’. I think it’s just natural seawater and looks spectacular with the rocks and splashing waves all around it.

Again, today the weather wasn’t too great and so we’d decided not to do the whole Bondi to Coogee Walk. It involves quite a lot of steep steps and there was a definite chance of rain. We had some obligatory photos on the rocks and then a coffee inside Icebergs.

Afterwards we had a little walk along the paved walkway which was v beautiful. I climbed the first set of steep steps to have a look at the views the other way. There were lots of incredibly fit people out for a run.

As I turned back it started to rain and this time we’d come prepared with our foldaway rain ponchos. They did just the job but looked ridiculous.

I then made my way down onto the beach but Jane stayed at the top to take some pics. Her bad back was still hanging about so we took the opportunity to just not make it any worse. The beach is pretty impressive and there were lots of people out surfing. Unfortunately, there were also lots of small ex-Jellyfish on the beach. Yuk.

After our morning down here we caught the bus back to town St Martin’s Place and walked through to the New South Wales Art Gallery. It was a relief to hand in our heavy back packs and we headed to the cafe as our first stop. Here we had a nice cup of tea and our very first ‘Lamington’ to share. This little beauty is like a Raspberry Ruffle cake.

After this we had about an hour to check out the best of the artwork. In the modern bit of the gallery called Naala Badu (seeing waters) we really enjoyed the Aboriginal art. Some huge pieces of colourful, dotty, splendidness and some smaller, more ‘primitive’ pieces of painting and ceramics depicting everyday scenes.

Next we visited the older building called Naala Nura (seeing Country). Here Jane visited the blue walls of the European and International section and I ran round the pink walls of the wonderful 20th century Australian collection.

We had a walk back to our hotel for a rest before heading out again for dinner. Tonight Jane found us a fab little Chinese restaurant TAO near the main shopping district. Jane was in search of the XO Sauce which she remembered having last time she was in Sydney over 20 years ago.

So much for a more relaxing day, eh?!

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Australia, Bondi, Sydney | 3 Comments

Back to the 80’s and 90’s

Posted on March 10, 2025 by julieallen36

Back in the 1980s I’d read a book which had always stuck in my mind. I’d forgotten what it was called but I remembered that it involved a ferry trip across Sydney Harbour to Manly. So on my list of things to do in Sydney, I had the famous ferry trip. What struck me about the book at the time was that, whilst I was commuting to London from Reigate on a smoky, dirty train every day, people across the world could catch a ferry to their office.

I’ve discovered that the book was indeed called ‘Last Ferry to Manly’ written by Jill Neville in 1984 and is about a woman leaving her life in London behind and going back to her roots in Sydney.

So even though the weather wasn’t great today , rather overcast with sun forecast for later, we decided to make the trip.

This involves catching the dear old ferry to Manly down at Circular Quay, just at the end of our road. With a bit of waffly guidance from the helpful volunteer. We sorted me an Opal card from the ever present Ezymart and then we were both able to tap and go. The ferry was quite large and at 9-30am had hardly anyone on it . We easily got a seat outside upfront so that we could enjoy the views of the harbour, bridge and Opera House.

But as we got further out into the harbour, it got distinctly breezy and we weren’t really dressed for this. So , we gave up and went inside, just before an announcement came over the tannoy that said they recommended everyone to come inside as it was going to be choppier than normal and you might get rather wet. The two who chose to stay outside did indeed get wet! 😱

We started to get really tossed about as we approached the mouth of the harbour and it was really unpleasant and a tiny bit scary even if everyone was pretending it was funny.

However, it didn’t last long and as we turned towards Manly things calmed down. Manly Wharf is very picturesque with a backdrop of Norfolk Pine trees making the water deep emerald green. Unfortunately, it was still rather cloudy. We visited the friendly Tourist Information Centre and then got sidetracked doing some shopping down the pedestrian ‘Corso’. We needed ‘Rashee’ vests for the next stages of our trip and we were successful in the numerous surf shops of Manly.

The place is busy but has a relaxed laid back surfer vibe and we walked along one end of the huge long sandy main beach of Manly. The beach walk has a mix of floppy blond-haired surfer kids, dazed tourists and the genteel retirees of Sydney strolling along. I even found an Art Group out for a spot of En Plein Air painting but disappointingly they weren’t very chatty and seemed to think I was a nutter not to be engaged with.

We had a coffee and snack at a little takeaway place next to the Surf and Rescue Club and watched the world go by before continuing our planned walk round to Shelly Beach. This had been recommended by Kirie off the train and is an easy 20 mins walk along a paved walkway. Today, however, it was very busy as the ‘Nippers’ (9 year olds) were in town for their swimming and life saving competitions. It was a very colourful scene but unfortunately it started to rain and we had absolutely no protection with us! So we tried our best to shelter under the rocks and palm trees with everyone else. By the time the rain stopped , we’d run out of time and after collecting our freebie plastic (why?) Manly glasses form the Tourist Info folk, we headed back and caught the return ferry to Sydney.

After a quick relax and change we were off out again. This time it was back to the 90s. I’d arranged ages ago to meet up with an old Lloyds Bank colleague from my days working as branch manager in Islington. Andy worked with me and back in 1997 when he was 22, I’d encouraged him to go off travelling when he wasn’t sure whether to stick with a career with Lloyds or not! Off he went ….to Thailand , India and then Australia. It was meant to be a round the world trip but in Australia he met Emma and never looked back. Nor did he ever complete the round the world trip! I hadn’t been in touch with Andy since way back then but found him via LinkedIn! So tonight, we met up at the iconic Opera Bar on the quayside next to the Opera House in the sunshine. I met Emma, and Andy met Jane, for the first time. It was great to catch up (well, at least some of the last 30 years!). Emma was absolutely lovely and it turned out that the Minstrels we’d carried all the way over from the UK for Andy, were in fact for Emma, who now thought we were lovely too🤗. We heard all about life in Sydney, they live in Kingsford just south of Bondi Beach and have 3 boys aged 22, 18 and 16. But they still enjoyed their exotic travels and I think it’s fair to say that Andy doesn’t regret leaving Lloyds! He’s worked for several of the big Aussie banks but now works to Woolworth’s specialising in Payments.

From the Opera Bar we made our way over to Barangaroo and upto CIRQ rooftop bar- 26 floors up in the Crown Building currently the tallest in Sydney at 271 and 75 floors. The views from the open air here were spectacular if a little breezy and we enjoyed a selection of tasty ‘tapas’ like dishes with our Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon which apparently cost £75. Hm bit of a mistake there on my part when the guy said the cheaper one wasn’t available. Giddy with the excitement of the day is my excuse. I never was very good on the Foreign Exchange counter.

At about 9pm we got a taxi back to our hotel and said our farewells to Andy and Emma as they ran off to catch their train home. What a lovely day it had been.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Australia, Manly, Sydney | Leave a comment

32,000 steps around Sydney

Posted on March 10, 2025 by julieallen36

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.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Australia, Sydney, The Rocks | Leave a comment

Into the Blue Mountains

Posted on March 8, 2025 by julieallen36

After all of the fun and games yesterday, we had a sedate dinner on board the train and then did a bit of tidying up our cabin before bedtime. This would be our last sleep onboard and I was already saying things like ‘I don’t want to get off the train…..boo’.

But we needed to be up early again for our trip into the Blue Mountains. We got off the train at Mount Victoria where a fleet of buses were waiting to take us all on our different tours. Our bus was a big red London Double Decker bus that struggled to make it up some of the hills around here but caught the attention of the Korean tourists.

As we drove to Scenic World the driver gave a v good commentary on the Blue Mountains. However, today it looked as if nothing would be particularly scenic as the mountains were covered in mist! When we got off we were handed freebie Indian Pacific ponchos which were very welcome as it was rather damp.

Interestingly, as we get nearer to Sydney we are catching up with all the history that I’ve been listening to on the superb ‘A History of Australia Podcast’. I’ve been listening to this back home whilst taking Molly for walks and doing chores etc. It’s by an Australian undergraduate called Anthony and is really good (nerdy). So far I’ve listening to 37 episodes and we’re only upto 1830!

But I do know that the Blue Mountains were seen as an impassable barrier by the first settlers from the time of Captain Cook landing in 1770. It wasn’t until 1813 that Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson along with 4 servants (convicts) and 6 dogs (let’s call them Woody, Buddy, Winston, Molly, Maevie and Dougal) , 2 cats (Bibi and Lily) and 1 Budgie (Toto the Intrepid) managed to find a way across. I do feel an entirely separate story coming on about this unlikely band but perhaps that should be for another day!

We drove through the town of Blaxland which was first settled way back then and allowed the colony to continue because it provided access to reliable farmland further beyond. Notably today I spotted the billboard advertising MacDonald’s in Blaxland so still providing a source of food today. Boom boom.

Meanwhile back at ‘Not so very scenic world’, Katoomba. It was time to get off the bus and start the rides! Basically, here they’ve created a bunch of different ways to travel across the canyons and forests of the Blue Mountains. First up was the Scenic Skyway which at 270m is Australia’s highest cable car. I’m sure the views normally are terrific but today….nothing! However, we were allowed in before everyone else which was great.

This took us to the next ride the Scenic Railway. At a 52 degree incline this is the steepest passenger train in the world. The metal seats are bucket like but when the driver said ‘hold on tight’ I thought it was a joke as there was nothing to hold us in and I had my rucksack in one hand and my camera in the other. As we set off the train tilted vertically and I felt myself sliding down. Oops! I was able to jab my foot up against the front and stop myself from….well , let’s not think about that but I do have a few Health and Safety concerns about this ride. Imagine if one of the tiny 3 sisters from the train were on here , I don’t think they could hold themselves on.

After these thrills and nearly spills , we took a leisurely stroll along the Scenic Walkway amid the ancient, temperate rainforest. Here we got up close to the flora of Eucalyptus, Banksia, Ferns, Acacia, Honeysuckle, rhododendron and huge strong vines.

By now the mists were starting to clear as we took our final ride on the Scenic Cableway. This is Australia’s biggest cable car and takes us back upto the Scenic Shopping Emporium. Jane and I ignored all this and just started to admire the views across the vast expanse of mountains and forests below.

But we’re not finished yet….no. We leave scenic world behind now and drive over to Echo Point which is the famous viewpoint for the iconic Three Sisters. These are 3 ancient sandstone formations from 200 million years ago (Triassic) named Meehni, Wimlah and Gunneddoo by the Aboriginal indigenous people.

But even though the sun was out we weren’t going to look at them. It was time for the Indian Pacific folk to eat lunch and consume vast quantities of free beer and wine. Dear God, they love a freebie! Unfortunately, around about the Scenic Walkway, I’d started to feel horrible motion ‘sickness’ after being on the train for so long. Not exactly sick but just like I was still walking on something that was rocking and feeling very unsteady. At lunch I discovered that others (all women) were feeling the same way.

So as soon as we’d scoffed the excellent taster board , Jane and I skipped off to see the view of the Three Sisters. Now the mists had completely cleared and the formations looked stunning in the sunshine! Not for the first time this trip, I felt a little bit over-whelmed (tired).

It had been a great trip, once again extremely well organised by the team at Journey Beyond who run the Indian Pacific Train. At Katoomba Station we boarded a local train that had been specially hired to get us back into Sydney and relaxed for the 2 hours it took before we arrived into Sydney Central Station.

Our luggage had all been taken off the original train and lay waiting for us in orderly queues next to where we got off. Amazing but then it all became a bit of a bunfight as people rushed to find their things. Suddenly there was a scream from a nearby train door and it was one of the 3 sisters who had fallen between the train and the platform and badly hurt her leg. Poor lady. The Indian Pacific team did all they could to look after her but that was definitely going to hurt in the morning.

Of course, we had our own issues what with Jane’s back and there was no way I could lug all of our luggage to a taxi. Did I mention that we had a lot?! So I guarded everything whilst Jane went and fetched Greg, a super helpful chap, who helped us get everything to the taxi queue and then waited with us until one came. Thank you lovely Greg and all of the Indian Pacific crew. The train has been absolutely amazing and we’ve loved everything about it. As I overheard someone else saying ‘I could get used to someone telling me to go here, do this, do that, cook my dinner and make my bed!’

But now it’s welcome to Sydney folks!