Sydney - Last Day, Part Two

Hello, 

We are finally getting around to this last post!  Lots happening here at home since we returned. But here's the remainder of our final day in Sydney...

After a nice lunch at the wharf in Manly Beach, we rode the ferry back to the wharf in downtown Sydney.  The lovely Royal Botanical Gardens are situated on the shores of Sydney Harbor, along the wharf and immediately behind the Opera House.  This seemed like a perfect opportunity to stroll the grounds. 

The Royal Botanical Gardens were founded in 1816 as a means of studying and collecting an incredibly vast array of plants, ornate trees and flowering shrubs.    Admission is free, the grounds are breathtakingly beautiful, and there are fantastic views of the harbor area and bridge.  A must-see if you visit this area. 

We spent two hours walking the gardens.   Although they are situated right in the heart of downtown Sydney, you feel as if you have entered another world.  It was very peaceful and quiet. 

One last thing we had wanted to do in Sydney was to "walk the bridge."  We had heard people on the cruise ship discussing this, and we thought it meant that you just walk on the pedestrian lane of the bridge.  Not even close!  You can actually walk UP THE ARCHES OF THE BRIDGE!!!!  It is called "Bridgeclimb."  Yikes. Definitely NOT for the faint of heart!  

When I (Karen) was a kid, my Dad told my sister and I to close our eyes whenever we approached a bridge. He said we were going OVER the arches, and we fully believed him. We are both deathly afraid of bridges to this day!  When David suggested that we do Bridgeclimb, I had a big lump in my throat, but I thought it might be a good opportunity for me to face my fear. So I agreed. 

It isn't a small bridge either!

As it turned out, we didn't have enough time to fit in the climb before our evening activities. WHAT A SHAME. :)))  Maybe next trip!

We walked back to our hotel to dress for the evening, as we had purchased tickets for a concert at the Opera House!  It was to be a Rachmaninov and Shostakovich concert.  As our last night in Sydney, this seemed like a lovely and fitting way to say good-bye to the city.  Our hotel was just a few short blocks from the Opera House, so we walked on a very pleasant, late spring evening. To add to the experience, there are an endless supply of quaint little cafés and restaurants lining the wharf as you walk toward the Opera House. We had no time to stop and partake, so we kept on walking. We did however stop on the way home!

If you don't live on Earth, you might not know about this place. :). If you do, then a performance there is a MUST.  Or at least a tour, which they seem to do non-stop.  The Sydney Opera House is a truly breathtaking structure.  Who knows how many thousands and thousands of tiles were used in this gorgeous roof. Ok, someone knows, I guess. A real Wonder of the Modern World. Legend has it that when the Danish architect Jorn Utzon entered the 1957 design competition for the commission, his sketches depicting a sail-like structure didn't even make the first cut. A Finlander on the committee supposedly fished them out of the trash can and arbitrarily declared him the winner. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. And in addition to opera, the venue offers theatre, dance, and many forms of musical concerts. 

We found our seats in the nosebleed section, ascending the gazillion steps to reach them. Here is the view that awaited us when we sat down. (Let me David, add a little note here. We bought the best tickets that were available on the date we purchased them. And we bought them months in advance. And we still ended up in the nose bleed section. So, if you ever want to go there, but your tickets early!)

What a lovely interior it has!  I was anxious to determine for myself whether all that we had heard about its terrible acoustics were true or not.  Evidently, there are a few conductors who summarily boycott the locale because the sound doesn't travel well. And music insiders site it as the worst of the major concert halls in terms of acoustics. 

We're no experts, but we found it to be perfectly satisfactory. The lovely sounds filled that beautiful auditorium. It was a great performance by the London  Symphony, featuring a Russian guest pianist. Quite a memorable evening!

As we walked back to our hotel after the performance, we snapped a photo of the city skyline to remember it by. 

Good night everyone!  We're headed home in the morning. See you all next trip!

With love,

Karen and David

Sydney- Last Day

Hello friends and family,

This will be our last post from Australia.  We leave Sydney tomorrow at lunch time. Our return flights take us back to Auckland, then to Los Angeles. Since we're getting in to LAX quiteat the late tomorrow evening, we opted to stay overnight at the airport and return home on Thanksgiving Day. 

It was a quick Starbucks breakfast today, as we had a good bit of sightseeing we wanted to accomplish.  Also, we noticed that food prices are EXTREMELY HIGH in our touristy area by the harbor, so Starbucks was an economical choice. 

Our Aussie friend, Sam, in Hood River told us before we left home that we must visit his favorite spot, Manly Beach, while we were in Sydney. We promised that we would, so this is for you, Sam!  Circular Quay (pronounced "key") is where you pick up the ferries. In fact, it is a very nicely organized transportation hub right at the harbor with trains, buses, ferries, taxis, and cruise ships to suit every traveler's need. It's also idiot proof. Everything is spelled out exceptionally clearly and laid out in such a way that you would have to work pretty hard to screw it up. 

We hopped on the ferry for the lovely thirty minute ride to Manly Beach. Our ferry was packed to the brim with tourists speaking more languages than we could identify. 

We all used sign language to assist one another take pics of the great views of the harbor as we sailed.  One person of note we met on board was a charming Englishman named Selwyn who was here visiting his daughter and her family. She had just delivered a grandson, and he came to visit and welcome him.  We hung out with him on the ferry both coming and going. He kindly offered to take our picture. 

Once we disembarked at Manly Beach, we referred to a "must see/do" list our Sydney friends, Tony and Karen from the the cruise ship, organized for us. They told us to first walk through the wharf area and down along the Main Street in town known as the Corso. This street was originally laid out in the 1840s as a boardwalk thoroughfare for tourists between the wharf and the beach. It has no vehicular traffic, and now serves as a pedestrian-lined mall of shops, pubs, and restaurants and general place to meet and greet.  Here's how it looked as we walked along...

We then reached the main beach. There are several in Manly, but most of the hubbub and activity centers around the large one at the center of town. On this day, there were surfers galore. Lots of experienced ones, but also many groups of younger kids who appeared to be participating in surf camp or summer group activities. We went and sat on the beach for a while to take it all in...

The next thing our friends told us to do was to take a stroll along the Fairy Bower.  I am so glad we did!  This was a stunningly scenic walkway which has been fashioned along the beach, using both natural and man-made elements. Along the way, we encountered the native "water dragons" scurrying about on the rocks...

The rock pool in Cabbage Tree Bay, built by locals in the 1920s...

Unique eco-sculptures and info about the local land and aquatic life...

And, in general, beautiful vistas...

The walkway goes on for quite a long stretch, and we didn't have time to complete it all, so we retraced our steps back to the wharf and had a quick lunch at the Wharf Bar, local hangout extraordinaire. From here, we could view the ferries dispatching tourists to and from, the ships at bay, the hustle and bustle of daily life in this little beach town. 

Not sure we have remarked yet on how odd it is to be here listening to American Christmas carols in late November while applying suntan lotion...

We'll have to complete today's adventures in our next posting, as we ran out of time for now. More later!

With love, 

David and Karen

G'day in Sydney!

Hi everyone,

When we awoke this morning, our ship was already docked in Sydney Harbor. Here is the view we saw from our breakfast terrace.  In one direction, the beautiful Sydney Harbor Bridge...

In the other, the Sydney Opera House...

So lovely!  When I texted a picture of the Opera House to my sister, Laura, she commented that it looks both primitive and futuristic at the same time. What a great description; it really does. We stood there admiring it for quite some time this morning. It is one of those iconic images that you can't quite believe you are standing in front of, even when you're there.

We were very sorry to leave our beautiful ship, but we said our good-byes to new friends, the wonderful staff, and our cozy cabin, and walked the two blocks to our hotel near the harbor.  Once settled in there, the first order of business was... What else???

Yep, Starbucks is just a hop, skip and a jump from our hotel.  It had some rather unusual and unpleasant looking food items in the shelves, so we passed on those. But the drinks were long-awaited and much appreciated!

Just a block from Starbucks, we found the hop on/hop off city bus tour we generally like to ride to familiarize ourselves in a new town. This one was of the double-decker variety, so we climbed up to the second deck and had a tour of the city, complete with audio. Unfortunately, it was an extremely hot day, and the sun was beating down hard on us, so I suppose this is why we did not take many pictures during our tour.  But here is one shot of Bondi Beach, a renowned local surf beach. 

Bondi Beach has a very pretty moon-shaped bay, crystal clear water and lovely beigy-white fine sand. It is a tourism mecca with many shops, hotels, restaurants and souvenir-type stands. We jumped off the bus, had a nice walk on the beach, then jumped back on the bus and rode to the hotel. 

Tonight, we had a small dinner and a bit of a walk around town. When we returned to our hotel room, this was the amazing view we enjoyed out the window...

The Harbor Bridge, the Opera House, and our cruise ship at night!  The Crystal Symphony leaves Sydney Harbor for her next sailing to Bali, Indonesia at midnight. We will miss her.   So many great memories!

Good night everyone, 

David and Karen

At Sea

Hello everyone,

Well, we said goodbye to New Zealand after leaving Milford Sound. The next two days consisted of nonstop sailing to Sydney, Austrailia.  As I write this, we are currently about 250 miles out of Sydney harbor. We will be docking tomorrow morning at approximately 06:00. We have to be off the boat by 09:45 tomorrow. 

So, since leaving Milford we have been living the life of leisure. We were entertained by many things. One was an amazing card/magic act. I (David) happened to have the front and center seat for this act. I was about 2 feet away from the performer. He demonstrated a variety of tricks, and it is hard to say which was the most amazing. He was continually shuffling the deck, which makes what he did even more amazing, for at the conclusion of the act, he spread out all the cards in their exact suits and exact rank. Just amazing!  He demonstrated dealing from the top, bottom and middle of the deck. If he hadn't occasionally stopped midstream to show you, you absolute could not tell what he was doing. That was from two feet away!

We also played group Trivial Pursuit, attended several stretching classes, walked the deck, and ate many luscious meals. Too many, in fact!

I have to tell you about supper last night. It was in the Asian restaurant that is on board called "Silk Road." I (David) actually ate raw fish. Sashimi!  I couldn't believe I was actually putting it in my mouth. It did involve one of our friends badgering me into it. All I can say is that I did not get sick, and I did not spit it out. I ate six pieces of it, which was the sampler our friend had the chef prepare for me. 

The rest of the meal was wonderful. Wagyu steak. Some excellent eggplant dish. Marvelous dessert.

 

We also just relaxed on the deck chairs and watched the waves. 

Today I have been queasy all day. It was a rough night at sea last night, and today wasn't much better till recently. I decided to put a patch on again and by late after noon I was feeling much better. 

So now on to Sydney!!!

Night all!

Sounds Good!

Good morning all,

Yesterday we had a wonderful day in Dunedin. Hmmm...Dunedin... I wish I could say we were done eatin! Ooooh! It is very difficult to resist the many delicious food concoctions onboard the ship. Everywhere you look, there are tasty snacks, desserts, breads, burgers, steaks, shrimp, lobster, pizzas, ice cream bars, buffets, not to mention the flavored coffees, mixed drinks, shakes. Oh my. I told David I will need to get a new wardrobe when we get home. He said he didn't think he could wait that long!!  

Anyway, today was a day we were very much looking forward to on the ship. We sailed through Fiordland at the southern end of New Zealand, where Captain Cook and his crew discovered and named these many wonderful sounds in he 1700's.  Our trek today took us through Dusky Sound, Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound. Don't those names sound like they came from a Disney movie? 

 Weird.  We were told that Captain Cook was only able to explore half of the sounds he found on his maiden voyage through the region. Concerns about weather and sea conditions kept him from entering all of them. The rest, he collectively named "Nobody Knows What." Several years later, Captain Cook's former first mate, who now had command of his own ship, came back to thoroughly explore the rest of the sounds. After he had done so, he renamed the formerly unexplored sounds "Somebody Knows What!"  That man was Captain Vancouver, who later went on to explore the Pacific Northwest and had two cities named after him. 

What to say about the sounds... Words fail to convey to you how spectacular they were on this cold, rainy day that we passed through.  Can you visualize miles of waterfalls?  Some just ephemeral streams coursing down the mountain; others intense gushers like Multnomah Falls.  Who knows how many there were - hundreds, thousands... Add to that the whales, the penguins, the migratory sea birds... This is a bucket list place!  To our knowledge, nothing like it exists on earth. Here are some pics, but unfortunately they will fail to do it justice. 

This gives you an idea of just how many amazing waterfalls there were to view.   We were soaking wet by the end of the trip through the sounds, but it was sooo worth it!

After we had sufficiently dried off from this adventure, we decided to join our fellow cruisers in partaking of the Mozart Tea. This was really fun!  It was a very elaborate afternoon tea (high tea) where the wait staff dressed in period costumes and a pianist performed Mozart pieces over tea and tasty pastries and finger sandwiches. 

Very yummy!  After tea we had another sumptuous dinner, and then a nice concert consisting of operatics, jazz and contemporary music rounded out the evening. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful day,

David and Karen

Dunedin

Hi everybody,

Today we are at our last port of call in New Zealand, the city of Dunedin. This city was largely settled due to a gold rush in the region in 1861. It quickly became the largest city in New Zealand, but once the miners and industry left, its population dwindled, and other cities grew. Today, it has a population of approximately 125,000.  The city has a very strong Scottish influence. In fact, it's name is Gaelic for Edinburgh. 

We had no excursions planned for today, but last night at dinner we sat with two couples who had scheduled a train ride through the scenic Taeiri Gorge today. It sounded like an interesting activity to us, so when we woke this morning, we tried to join in on that trip. No luck; it was sold out. But a fellow guest told us that we may still be able to plan the trip through another tour operator once we got off the ship in Dunedin, and that is precisely what we did.  In fact, it worked out even better, because we got the train ride and a two-hour tour of the city by bus included for the same price. 

The train ride was lovely. We were lucky with the timing too, as the hillsides were ablaze with the beautiful yellow Scotch Bloom.

Here's what our train looked like as we trekked along...

Here is the inside of one of the cars. They look like they were designed in the 1930s or 1940s...

And here's David waving a fond farewell to the train tour...

The train station in Dunedin is quite beautiful too. It is called "The Gingerbread House" by locals, and you can see why. We took a few pictures of its interior and exterior...

Next, we went on our city tour by bus. When we first saw the city, it didn't look like anything special. But after driving around a bit, we began to see how lovely it was. From the beautiful sand beaches...

To the elaborate churches and cathedrals...

And the steepest street in the world (per the Guiness Book of Records, Lombard Street in San Francisco ranks second)...

And finally, these unusual teeth. The Kiwis have a good sense of humor, as they used these teeth to indicate the "mouth of the bay." Get it?!?!  

Also, notice that they are "wisdom" teeth.  They used these because Dunedin is the center of higher education in New Zealand.  There are many universities located in the city. 

One last thing we haven't mentioned yet. Everywhere we go, we see these beautiful and exotic trees. Although we don't know their proper name, the New Zealanders affectionately call them "Christmas threes," because of their deep green leaves and vibrant red flowers. Also, they bloom at Christmas time. The white buds open into large, fuzzy red flowers. 

Well, that's all for today. Best wishes to everyone, and talk to you all soon!

All best,

Karen and David