Sydney – City and Harbor Sights

We pulled into Sydney, Australia, in the wee hours of the morning.  Jeff had been hoping that we’d catch a glimpse of the iconic Sydney Opera House from the ship.  What luck!  As it turns out, we pulled in as close as a large ship could possibly be, and I tumbled out of bed to a wonderful sight!

The Sydney Opera House was built based on the Danish architect, Jorn Utzon’s, design.  It had been an international competition, won by Jorn.  Work began in March, 1959, on the Opera House and originally was to be completed by 1963.  Ten years later, in 1973, and 1,357% over budget, it was finally finished and opened by Queen Elizabeth, on October 20, 1973.  An interesting note was shared by the tour guide we had to see Sydney’s sights – a large portion of the remaining cost owed for the building was paid for by some sort of lottery tickets sold.  Gamblers across Sydney paid for a good portion of the building costs!  

Later in the morning, we took a bus tour of some of Sydney’s sights.  Of course, we couldn’t see it all, or stop at everything we did see, but one of our stops was at a point in the Sydney Botanic Garden.  We got to get a good view of the Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge.  This bridge was seen by many when local TV stations showed the fireworks of Sydney welcoming in the year 2000 – one of the earliest celebrations, a day ahead of the US, due to the International Date Line.  The carved chair, Mrs. MacQuarie’s Chair, was at the spot of a great view of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge.  This chair was carved in 1810 for Elizabeth MacQuarie, wife of the then Governor of New South Wales, where Sydney is located.  Legend has it that she liked to sit on this chair and watch the ships from England arrive.

As we drove along, we passed thru different areas, each with increasingly expensive homes and impressive views of the harbor.  One of the most striking views is one that is enjoyed by the students of the School of the Sacred Heart, an all girls’ school, in Sydney.  I’m not sure how much I would have paid attention to the class given that view!

As we moved along, we stopped at a place called Gap Park.  I’m not sure how it got its name, but the lookout from there allowed us a view of the entrance to Sydney Harbor from what a called the Sydney Heads.  The point on which we stood and the one across the harbor entrance are the headlands of the harbor, now nicknamed The Sydney Heads.  Looking in another direction revealed a very thin layer of rock, above what would be a long fall to the rocks and water below.  I got the impression that perhaps this might be a site for those contemplating suicide.  Even tho the edges of the cliffs are fenced off, I’m guessing people have found ways around them.  I say this because there was a phone with a direct connection to a suicide prevention hotline, and several public service announcement type boards talking about how there is always hope.  It made me sad to think that others would look out at this beauty and be in too much pain to see it.

Altho Gap Park wasn’t very large, they did have some interesting flowers blooming. And, I know its fall and most flowers aren’t blooming at home, down here, the seasons are opposite, and October is spring time, so the flowers are in bloom! I have heard of a bottle brush tree, but never saw an actual bottle brush bloom. I finally got to see one.  It does really look like one of those bottle brushes used to clean bottles, etc.  However, I definitely wouldn’t try that with this bottle brush! And, I believe the yellow bloom is a type of daisy, but I’ve not seen one with the perfect little black accents on the base of its petals.

When we started into Sydney Harbor at o’ dark thirty in the morning, we couldn’t see the Opera House yet, but I did see what I thought was a lighthouse beacon.  I couldn’t see any lighthouse then, but on our drive, we did come across the lighthouse whose beacon I saw much earlier in the morning!

We then drove by a cemetery located up on a high bluff in a Sydney suburb (yes, they call them suburbs).  We didn’t stop, so I couldn’t get individual shots of some of the headstones.  However, perhaps the most interesting – and unique – of the headstones was the one of an Australian race car driver.  His headstone has a statue of him sitting in his race car, looking out toward the open sea.

Our furthest point away from the harbor was to a very popular beach, Bondi Beach.  It is Australia’s most famous beach, and is visited by more than a million people every year. What is interesting is that this now beautiful beach was once the outlet for sewage pouring out of Sydney – yuck!  It took quite a lot of persuading on the part of those concerned, including concerts by popular musicians, to get the government to clean things up, but, as you can see, the finally did.  However, there are other reasons why swimming at any beach in Australia can be problematic.  The rip tides here can be really bad – in fact, at Bondi Beach, there was a relatively small section that was indicated to be safe for swimming.  In addition, there are a couple types of marine life that aren’t compatible with human life.  The first is the Blue Bottle Jellyfish, who is blue in color, and has tentacles long enough to wrap around a person, and then they sting him/her multiple times, which can cause a fatal heart attack.  The second threat to humans, are, of course, sharks. I guess the waters surrounding Australia are really popular with sharks.  We were told that they have helicopters that routinely patrol the area and when either the jellyfish or sharks are determined to be in the area, the beaches are closed.  I guess you really need to like swimming at the beaches here!

On our way back to the ship, we drove thru some charming neighborhoods.  We saw a few (not many) open markets – I love the colors of the flowers, fruits and veggies!  And, there are this narrow, connected homes called Sydney City Houses.  These homes were modeled after the row houses found in England.  However, the problem is that the summers in Australia see temperatures easily into the 90s and sometimes into the 110s!  Housing is so expensive in Sydney, however, that people make due with these homes as best they can just to live in Sydney.  I wondered why they didn’t put in air conditioning, but that wasn’t listed as something that people routinely would do.  Perhaps the cost is prohibitive.  As a point of reference, our tour guide said that a somewhat roomy home in Sydney is about the size of what we call “tiny homes” in the States.  Wow!

After we got back from our bus tour of the Sydney City Sights, Jeff and I decided to take a walk around the harbor.  One of the interesting things I noticed was the Ferry Terminal.  There are ferries coming and going all day.  Where do they go?  Well, the harbor has over 400 miles of coastline, so mostly they act as a sort of water commuter vehicle – watching the ferries come and go reminded me of the Metra trains in Chicago’s Union Station!

We came across many open air restaurants that lined the harbor directly across from our ship.  We did enjoy a lunch – but it was interesting.  We had a hard time getting someone to wait on us at first, and then a British woman came up to me and told me that service in Australia is much worse than in the USA.  She said she once asked a waitress in Australia if she (the woman) was invisible.  The waitress gave a cheeky response – “No, you’re not”, and moved on!!!  Our service wasn’t that bad, thank goodness! Food was tasty, too!

We even walked all the way to the Opera House, so we could get an up close view of it.  It’s really quite amazing.  We didn’t have enough time to go in, but, it was nice to see it from all angles!!  I also really liked that it’s such a gathering place for people.  We saw at least 2 groups of school kids heading there while we were eating.  School outings!  (Oh, by the way, in Sydney, all kids were school uniforms, both public and private schools. Interesting.)

Once we were back on the ship, we still noticed some interesting buildings – one seemed to be an old church, and I really liked the lines of the building.  The other image is of two rows of buildings.  I don’t know what they are now, but at one point, these were cargo ship warehouses.  Companies would ship many different products over from England, etc., and have them stored in these warehouses until they were ready to ship to other companies, etc.  Personally, given their stated housing shortage in Sydney, I think they’d make great lofts!

As I walked around the outside deck, I caught this great image of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.  Did you know it’s also known as “The Coat Hanger”?  Just imagine the hook part that hangs on the rod coming out of the top of the bridge, and you can see why.  The bridge was opened in 1932, and then modified in 1942, for WWII, to include parapets and anti-aircraft guns.  It is the tallest steel arch arch bridge in the world, and the 6^th longest spanning arch bridge in the world.  It’s also great as a fireworks firing point…..just sayin’.

And, we ended the day, as it began, with a look at the Sydney Opera House.  I loved all the activity around it.  You can see some people walking around, if you look close, and the ferry coming in and the sailboat heading further down the harbor.

Enjoy!