More of Sydney

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I’ve done some exploring these past 2 days.  Yesterday, we walked around Darling Harbour and the Barangaroo Reserve, in addition to taking a 2 hour Harbour cruise.  Today, we challenged ourselves taking the city bus back to Bondi Beach, and being hammered by rather large waves.

The Sydney Harbour cruise was a blast.  We got seats on the front of the ferry, so we had a great view of the Harbour Bridge from all angles... front, back, and bottom.  We had heard that you can even walk on the top span of the bridge, and we could see groups of brave souls trekking the ironworks.  Of course, we also had the best view of the Sydney Opera House, with the sun and blue sky framing that distinctive structure.  One highlight of this cruise was that we invited ourselves (we knocked on the pilot house door), to visit with the captain.  He was very gracious, and chatted with us for about 10 minutes.  As we were about to leave, he asked, “do you want to sit in the pilot’s seat?”  Of course, Caroline couldn’t pass up this opportunity!  But when Caroline got up, he did seem to have to make a few adjustments... I think Caroline couldn’t help herself with that control stick in her hand!


We will be watching a production in the Sydney Opera House in a few days, so more on that later.  I did notice that 100% of the people on board were taking photos of it as we sailed by. Of the millions and millions of photos taken of this building, is one better than the other?  Here is my attempt, leaning WAY over the railing.

Okay, it’s not art!  I actually was spending a lot of time watching a couple of gulls fighting for table scraps.  The Corona I was drinking had nothing to do with either my photography or my attention!


After we disembarked, Caroline and I walked to the Barangaroo Reserve.  
Just a few years ago this was a blighted 22 hectare area.  In fact, an Apple map has it still as a cargo loading area (Google maps has it in its current condition).  I have to confess, we spent about 30 minutes chatting with the district’s security staff about feral cats.  Depending on who you talk to, there are 1) no cats, 2) only a few cats and they are actively controlled, or 3) there are only a few cats, and the humane laws and the politicians won’t let anybody do anything about them.  I’m still looking into it.





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