Blue Planet Journey

We had about 28 hours in Sydney before heading to the airport.  After lugging our bags up numerous stairs, we made it to the bed and breakfast in The Rocks , where we found we were on the third floor (more stairs).  We dumped the luggage, and took advantage of our location, right next to another set of stairs that leads to the walkway along and over the Sydney Harbour Bridge . So we've ridden bicycles across the bridge, and took a bus that drove across.  We've been under it on numerous walks, and the ferries and tour boats give you a good perspective from underneath.  But we had never walked across.  There's a good breeze, so a warm day shouldn't keep you from making this trip.  And it is free.  If you have the time and money, you can walk over the inner (about $160 AUD) or outer rim (about $300 AUD) of the bridge, or climb one of the pylons ($15 AUD).  Jeez... or you can rent a bike for about $25 AUD and ride across, or walk for...

Caroline and I finally got bikes to ride around Sydney.  Jeez... you would think this would be a relatively straight-forward process!  But we panned the dockless bikes (the subject of an earlier blog), and when we found docked bikes at a nearby hotel, the check-out panel told us they were “in need of service.”  That’s what we were told for 2 of the 3 bikes there... we didn’t try to check out the third because we needed 2. So we walked downtown where Siri told us there were some bike shops.  We found 2 opened during this holiday period.  They were large stores, with a great deal of equipment and bikes, but no rentals.  One shop employee suggested some vague possibilities for bike rentals in Manly, or Bondi, or The Rocks.  The other shop gave us a name in The Rocks, and after consulting Siri, we finally walked into Bonza.  Bonza seems to focus on tours, but Steve set us up with 2 great Trek bikes.  Sweet! We started off with a ride ov...