Sydney – Feb 20/21, 2011
I have to admit that I had forgotten what a great cruise port Sydney has become. We docked right under the Harbour Bridge. Hop off the ship and you’re immediately swallowed up in the frenzy of activity that surrounds Circular Quay, the transportation and tourist center of the city. Boats and ferries to everywhere, trains around the city and taxis in abundance. I have yet to meet an unpleasant Aussie!

Unfortunately we arrived on a Sunday and the tour we were hosting was scheduled to depart the ship at 1:00PM, so we only had a few hours to head up George Street for shopping. However, being a Sunday, the shops did not open until 11:00AM which didn’t allow any time for the obligatory ritual. We were able to walk through the Queen Victoria Building, probably the most attractive shopping mall I’ve ever seen. It is a three story truly Victorian building extending for a whole city block. The center is open on all three floors and the ceiling above allows the sun’s brightness to permeate throughout the whole building. In the center, hanging from the top of the third floor to the top of the first, is the most exquisite time piece. It tells time from the second to the century. I hope the pictures do it justice.

After a quick lunch we met our group and proceeded to the tour busses. Several of our guests had tickets to a 5 PM performance at the Opera House, so we segregated them onto a single bus so they could go to the Opera House last. No problems, good tour. After we got back we took a ferry to Darling Harbour to look for a place to have a nice meal. There were scads of restaurants, all overpriced for the tourists. We ended up at a Wagamama, still overpriced but more in line with what we were willing to pay. The waitress here told us that we could walk back to ”The Rocks”, the area of town where the ship was docked, in 15 minutes. Thirty minutes and 84 stairs later we still had no idea where we were so we hopped a cab and were back in 10 minutes.

Our second day in Sydney involved climbing the Harbour Bridge. Gina has a fear of heights and wanted to do this. I’m sure she’ll be writing about it so I’ll just say “Congratulations, Gina!”