To start off the second leg of our journey, a special guest joined us – my mom Sheila! Newly retired, she has been dreaming of starting her travel adventures. So she jumped at the chance to hop on a 15-hour flight with me down to Sydney (not to mention the 4+ hours early she required us to leave for the airport, but who’s counting). We’ll be spending a couple weeks in Australia before meeting back up with John!

We really lucked out with the weather the week we were here – a forecast of rain everyday magically turned to beautiful and sunny everyday except one. One day it even reached 80 degrees, allowing my mom to only wear two coats instead of three. She’s really gotten used to those hot Seattle summers! 😉

The Opera House

On our first full day, we took a guided tour of the Opera House. We got to walk through and sit in the two largest theaters while our guide described how the acoustics work, which is truly amazing with no manual audio projection for most performances, they just rely on the wood/shape of the room to project the sound. We learned that the planned 4 year $7M project turned into 14 years and $102M by the time it was finished. The original architect, Jorn Utzon from Denmark, even quit partway through due to disagreements with the Sydney government, so a Sydney based architect had to take over the project halfway through.

We were lucky to get different viewpoints of the Opera House throughout our week here, walking across the Sydney Harbour bridge, riding by on a ferry, from various parks. On our last night we even got to see the projection of Queen Elizabeth (after her passing), which was pretty awesome.

Blue Mountains

We took a day tour from Sydney to visit the Blue Mountains, a mountain region about an hour outside of the city. Our tour guide, Tom, picked us up early in the morning and let us sit in the front seats of the bus that had “reserved” signs on them – we’re still not sure why we got the special treatment but we had great views so we’re not complaining! 

Our first stop was the Featherdale Wildlife Park, a fairly large zoo that focuses on conservation of Australian wildlife. We got to pet some wallaby’s and saw a bunch of koalas – adorable! The best part was that a kangaroo seemed to have gotten out of its enclosure while we were there, and it was just hopping around the zoo. It followed us into the reptile exhibit and stopped to view a bunch of the reptiles – hilarious!

After a short stop for lunch, we made our way to several viewpoints of the Blue Mountains. The mountains are named after the blue hue due to all of the eucalyptus oil in the air from the trees. The Three Sisters rock formation is the main attraction in this area. The Aboriginal legend says that a set of three sisters from the Katoomba tribe were turned to stone so they couldn’t marry a set of three brothers from a neighboring tribe, hence the name. Our tour took us to Scenic World, apparently the busiest tourist attraction in Sydney pre-covid, which has three different “rides” that give viewpoints of the Three Sisters and the beautiful Katoomba waterfall. It has the world’s steepest railway, a cable car, and a skyway with a glass floor for extra thrill. All were fun, but the railway won our vote for the most fun and we rode it twice!

Our tour ended with a ferry ride back to Sydney at sunset. We had gorgeous views of all the surrounding areas and huge houses on the harbour, and rode under the Sydney Harbour bridge with a beautiful view of the Opera House. It was a full and fun day!

The Beaches

We definitely got our steps in while exploring Sydney! We spent a day walking between the famous Bondi Beach and Bronte beach. This area is responsible for the origin of lifeguards, because people were getting swept up by the currents and drowning so frequently they set up shifts of neighborhood watches to help people if they needed.

We also spent a day over in Manly Beach, meeting up with the sister of one of our neighbors back home. We got a delicious seafood lunch on the beach, then walked along the famous Manly beach enjoying the sites. A common thing at the beaches here seem to be ocean-filled pools right next to the water – I’ll have to come back some time in the summer and get in one!

Public Transportation

It’s worth talking about how good the public transportation in Sydney is. They have a set of trains, buses, light rails, and ferries that connect the entire city. We used them all as they were super convenient and there whenever we needed them. I will say they aren’t super cheap – you can just use your credit card to tap on and off on each ride, so you never really know how much you’re paying. We ended up paying ~$40 for our week, which considering how much we used it isn’t crazy but isn’t a steal either.

The Food

The highlight of our food tour in Sydney was probably the coffee. We found a cute little coffee shop near our hotel – Short Stop – that made delicious cappucinos and had very fancy donuts baked fresh each day. We made it there three times, and by the end the barista recognized us and we felt like regulars. We also enjoyed several happy hours in Darling Harbour, with beautiful views and Sheila got to try both her first Espresso Martini and Aperol Spritz – good times were had!

We had a wonderful time in Sydney – I can definitely see how people fall in love with it and never leave!

Christine