25th February 2019 - Sydney

After the exertions of yesterday we had a leisurely start to the day. Basically we just couldn’t seem to get out of bed and consequently half the morning had gone before we left our hotel! It is a lovely quirky hotel and the staff are super friendly and helpful. There is a free minibar which we have hardly used 🙄. We have Alexa in the room and Geoff is loving telling her/him/it what to do!! There’s a free bag of assorted nibbles and a cloth bag to take if you want for your shopping, dirty washing, or whatever you want, and of course it advertises the hotel. The room is small but we have been made to feel very welcome, and it has all we need.

We had decided that the best way to try and see the city was to do a boat tour of some kind and after a lengthy discussion plumped for one of many different sorts! It left at 1.15 so cut into the day, but we filled the time before walking up to Chinatown and into a different part of the city.

The boat tour took us from Darling Harbour, crisscrossing the enormous Sydney harbour, under the bridge and out as far as Watson Bay. Sydney just sprawls for miles, probably not unlike London but we have found it difficult to know where the heart really is. And then there are the hills. Not big ones, but big enough for things to be on different levels, so there might be 3 levels of roads and walkways and you have to try and find how to get across roads and to where you want to be. Not a good description but it conveys my confusion!! You might go into a building at ground level and come out the other side on the 2nd floor. By this evening we were beginning to get the hang of it in this part of town at least!

We have struggled with the noise, commotion, and apart from around the Opera House and Harbour Bridge areas, the lack of character. Am I allowed to say that of such an iconic city? Maybe it’s the contrast to the small cities of New Zealand? I’m not sure. We could have visited beaches, art galleries and museums galore, the zoo or gone further afield for some walking, but we haven’t. So maybe we should have done!!! I think we are lacking a little energy and need the next few days of rest that we should be getting!

However we are glad to have been here, to see what we have seen and to have such a fabulous time yesterday evening (when at home David and Helen, assisted I think by Anna and Alex at some point, we’re dealing with a mice problem in the kitchen 🤦‍♀️😳 Sorry guys!)

Tonight we managed to find a lovely little Italian restaurant where we had a simple but tasty veggie pasta. As in all good Italian restaurants, there was a homely feel and a bit of humour with the staff.

On the way back we could hear a commotion in some trees above us and we looked to see what at first we thought were large birds, only they weren’t. We are pretty sure they were fruit bats, but they were huge, the size of very large rooks. I’m not sure I really liked them flying over my head, they were a bit like something from the age of the dinosaurs. However, I did follow them around for a while in a vain attempt to get a photo but they were too well camouflaged in the trees!

It was the best I could do!!!