Sydney

Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Manly Beach Ferry.

The Opera House from the Manly Ferry.

The Rocks district.

Taken from the tower of the Harbour Bridge.

Back through the historic Rocks district.

You can see the people who paid a small fortune to walk up and over the bridge.

Saturday, August 13^th

I found the public bus to take me to Sydney Harbour. It took me to Ciruclar Quay where the train, buses and ferries all meet. I decided to take a ferry to Manly Beach in order to have a tour of the harbour. From the ferry I got my first view of Harbour Bridge (the longest single span bridge in the world), the Opera House and the city skyline. All very impressive and combined made a beautiful harbour. The ferry sailed from the CBD out to the outlying areas and past the actual exit of the bay to the open ocean. When I got there I saw that the beach was nothing special so I stayed on the ferry and took the return trip and again got a great view sailing back into the city.

I spent the rest of the day exploring the harbour area. I walked in and around the Opera House, into the Botanical Gardens, and then back towards the Harbour Bridge via the Rocks, which is an historical district full of colonial buildings and now housing tourist shops, boutiques and restaurants to service the cruise boats that dock nearby. When I got to the bridge I checked out the tours that they run where you can actually walk over the arched span of the bridge, but they wanted close to $300 to do it. My FOMO cheaped out, so I decided to walk across the road deck of the bridge to get a good view of the Opera House. When I go to the brick support tower I found that for $13 you could climb 200 stairs to get a even better view and read about the history of the construction. The view was indeed stunning. Then I continued over the bridge to the north bank before walking back. I returned to the Botanical Gardens and spent the last part of the afternoon wandering around looking at the wide variety of plants and stalking some rainbow lorakeets.

In the evening I went for a walk and found a local bar where I had dinner and a drink before going to bed to rest my weary legs. Altogether this weekend I walked about fifty kilometres, no wonder I'm tired.