Days 69-70: Sydney

Sydney Opera House

I’m sure that I took far too many pictures of the opera house, but it really is a stunning place, and our tender stop was right there. The harbor is very busy, with the ferry terminal right where the trolleys, busses and metros all come together, right next to the opera house. So we had 2 days and a night in Sydney, which was wonderful, but the ship remained anchored in the harbor, so we had to take the tenders back an forty, which worked out ok for us, but we heard others talk about long waits to get out. For the morning rush, they handed out tickets, so the Chinese lined up at 7:30 AM for 11AM distribution, and let all of their friends and countrymen into the front of the line. I noticed that when we were going out on the 2nd day, the return line was almost all Chinese, so I guess they “won”.

We had a city tour scheduled, and didn’t expect to get a tour of the inside of the opera house. Wow, it was amazing! We wandered outside, and there is a stage set up and a sound check happening. We asked who was playing, and were told it is New Order! Wow, that would be fun for tonight, but it was sold out. We could listen from outside, but decided to make other plans. The city tour ended at Bondi Beach and they were only going to give us a half hour, so we exited the tour to hang out at the beach and get some lunch. The food was ok and overpriced as expected, but the views and atmosphere were wonderful. We took a dip and jumped on the city bus to return back. They have a system where you scan your credit card when you get on and scan again when you get off, and are charged for the distance travelled. All of the metros work that way, which is very efficient and easy. The city, at least the parts we saw, was extremely clean and vibrant. Very little graffiti and destruction that seems to be prevalent in most big cities.

So we’re in Sydney on a Friday night, and New Order is sold out, so what to do? Jess googled Rock Concerts and we found out that Todd Rundgren is playing tonight at a place called The Factory, only about 5 miles from the Opera House! There were still tickets available, and we had no idea what kind of shape Todd Rundgren is in, but neither of us has seen him, so we got tickets and headed out. On the way to meet the Uber, we were swimming upstream through the New Order fans, which was great people watching!

The Factory was in an old industrial district. We walked in and there were a couple of outdoor bars, and they had 2 concert venues, one downstairs and one upstairs. We ascended to the upstairs venue, which also had a bar and some couches and tables set up for the GA area. Pretty nice GA digs, but we had reserved seats near the back of the reserved section, but still the seats were good. The opening band was really good and played originals. When Todd Rundgren came out, I was surprised that the same band was backing him, and were very tight. He was fantastic and we had a great time!

He played a bunch of songs that we weren’t familiar with but were really good. When he came out for the encore, he kind of made his popular old songs into a medley. He must be so sick of playing them! After the show, we got to see some other vibrant parts of the city, and returned as the New Order fans were leaving.

we decided to take a chill beach day a Manly Beach. There was an express ferry to the beach, so we hopped on it and enjoyed a nice tour of the harbor. It was a 3 or 4 block walk across the isthmus from the terminal on the bay to the beach. It was a huge beach, and there are many others to the north. We didn’t know where to snorkel, so we just went to the beach and body surfed. I decided to put on my shoes and hike south where I discovered where the marine park and snorkeling was located. By the time I got back, we were both ready to get out of the sun, so we packed up and went to get lunch. We found an Indian restaurant full of Indian people, so that was it. We ordered twice as much food as we needed, but it was excellent. We boxed up leftovers and gave them to one of the crew members from Bali

Sydney was a great place to visit. The Aussies are super friendly and this is probably one of the nicest cities I’ve ever visited — top 5 for sure. The ship was delayed leaving the harbor, so we were treated to a beautiful fireworks display after the sun set over the bridge. Such an amazing place!