Australia Day 12: To Sydney at Last
My alarm goes off at 5:30 AM and I try to pull my body out of the dream I'm in. It's always such a challenge waking up when I am in the middle of a dream. Thankfully I had packed everything last night. We just need to change and pack toiletries and jammies, which I can do while half awake. We plan to eat breakfast at the airport so we check out and order our Uber to the airport.
Dropping the bags is easy once again and this time Landon’s bag doesn't get flagged for extra screening, even though nothing has changed. When Kailey goes through the metal detector her shirt causes issues as she has metal grommets on the shoulders. She needs to get a pat down on the shoulders, but then she's let go. I need to remember that's not a good airport shirt. I also get flagged by the scanner and I discover a folded up granola bar wrapper in a skinny section of my pocket that I didn't even know was there! After removing it I was good to go as well.
We were each given a $10 food voucher coupon for breakfast when we checked in. After getting through security we head to Hungry Jacks. We are able to look at the menu on their digital order screens and figure out how to optimize our order. We can't get change, so we spend $39.15 out of our $40. When we finish eating we head to our gate.
Australians tend to shorten words, such as breakfast to brekky, and Nate likes that they use those terms in the official signage and packaging too.
Nate's Brekky Wrap has BBQ sauce on it, which is different. Mine would have but I ordered it without that, and Nate said he could have done without it.
This JetStar flight was like the last where we didn’t board by zones. It is just a free for all loading from both the front and rear of the aircraft.
Our flight is smooth. I have a window seat so I can take some pictures out the window along the 3 hour flight down to Sydney.
Taking off from Cairns
After flights take off from the airport they bank hard to the east and head over the ocean to not fly directly over the city of Cairns. Here you can see the airport after we have made our sharp turn.
Mid flight we are over what looks like farm land
A little further on this appears to be maybe a rock quarry or some kind of mining
As we are approaching the airport we once again head out over the ocean, so not to fly directly over the city, before turning inward to land.
The view out Nate's window as we are coming in for a landing
After getting our bags we are trying to find the Uber pick up location. The driver calls Nate to give directions to where we are supposed to go, as it's not straight forward.
The ride to the hotel takes around 30 minutes. Normal check in time would be in the afternoon, but since we had already paid for the previous night we are able to get into our room right away.
Our room is on Level 21, which is the highest level with rooms. The next level up is the top where the swimming pool and workout room are located. The hotel has three elevators, however one of them is out of order so sometimes it takes a while to get an elevator. They also are often full during busy times. The stairs are for emergency exit only with the doors at each floor locked from the inside so you can't just take the stairs.
Our hotel is located just off of Hyde Park in downtown Sydney. From our room you can see the Anzac Memorial which honors the service and sacrifice of all servicemen and servicewomen and their families. We walk across the park to get to a fancy mall where we grab some lunch. The mall is a Westfield Mall which also owns many malls in the US.
The mall is at least 4-5 floors with walkways that cross the road to join them to other buildings across the street. Most of these stores are way more expensive than my tastes, like Gucci, Chanel, Prada, and Jimmy Choo. But the food court has some good options and we settle on a well rated burger place called Slim's Quality Burgers. We order a family pack option which feeds 4 people. Their fries are a lot like the fries at In-N-Out, cut fresh on site.
They put a really good seasoning on their fries, so I actually like them better. The rest of the food is good too.
After eating we make our way back down to the street level, which was level 2. It takes us a little over 30 minutes to walk to the Sydney Opera House. My feet are killing me making it painful to walk. Kailey also said her feet hurt, so we take a couple of short breaks along the walk. We need to figure out how to catch the bus back to the hotel when we are done.
Massive root system on this tree, with flowers growing around it too.
You might need to drive an Aston Martin or Jaguar to be part of this club.
One thing that I notice about the Sydney Opera House that I didn't realize before, is that the roof is actually a tile roof. I later found it has over a million tiles on it that were made in Sweden!
A design competition was held back in 1956 to come up with designs for the Opera House. A man named Jørn Utzon was named the winner in January of 1957, winning ₤5000. They estimated the cost to build it to be around 7 million Australian Dollars, however by the time it was built it cost around 102 million! Most of the funding for the building came from the state lottery. They thought it would take around 4 years to build, however it took 14 years. It was finally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on October 20th, 1973.
The Concert Hall has a grand organ in it that has over 10,000 pipes! That would be so cool to hear! There are actually seven performance venues on the site. Besides the Concert Hall, they have the Opera Theatre, Playhouse, Drama Theatre, The Studio, the Forecourt and the Utzon Room.
We look for tickets to a kid friendly show, but they are all sold out for the days we are there. Had we not lost a day due to our flight delay we could have tried to get a tour or something, but it's still neat to see from the outside.
Nate does some research and finds we can use our credit cards to tap and on and off public transportation (ferry, bus, trains). It maxes out at 9.65 AUD ($6.31 USD) per day per person on the weekend (Fri-Sun) which are the only day's we'll be using it.
The 333 bus will take us from the Circular Quay (pronounced "Circular Key") Warf area down by the Sydney Opera house to a stop just around the corner from our hotel. The bus ride takes around 12 minutes. Right where we get off the bus is a small grocery store so we decide to grab some cold drinks.
As we walk out of the grocery store and up to a crosswalk there was a lady with a fancy looking bowl of something interesting, so I ask her what it is. She said it's Tiramisu for her dad's 84th birthday. We chat for a few minutes as we wait for a walk signal. Just before she pops into an apartment building she tells us we need to check out Bondi Beach. She says the 333 bus will take us all the way there.
I want to look into it first as I don't know how long of a bus ride it will take to get there and it is already getting late in the day. Once in our room Nate does a little research and finds that it's a 30 minute ride from our stop. We change into sandals, grab a beach towel, and head out so we can get there before the sun goes down.
Walking is painful because of blisters on toes of both feet and I am hoping that walking on the beach will be easier. It is easier on my toes however the beach sand is very soft, so walking a long way is hard on the arch of my feet.
We only have around 15 minutes before sunset by the time we get there. The kids have fun dipping their toes in the water, even though this water is colder (around 64 F). The beach in Port Douglas a couple days prior was at least 10 degrees warmer.
Shark nets are a type of gillnet that they deploy off of beaches to try prevent sharks from entering the waterway. However their effectiveness has been questioned as they don't actually net off all the way to the sea floor, or all the way across an opening. So sharks can just swim under or around them, and they often catch animals they are not targeting like dolphins or turtles. Plus if an animal does get caught in the net, it would bring in sharks as they like to go after injured or dead animals. Due to these factors many of the shark nets around Australia have been removed. The last shark attack at this beach was just over 15 years ago.
As the kids were posing for pictures a wave washed up and just touched their feet for the first time, this was their reaction to the cold water!
We need to get to bed at a decent time tonight because we have early morning plans. Since the sun has now set we make the trek back up the beach and up the steep hill to the bus stop. However when the bus comes a few minutes later it is so full they won't even let anyone on.
The buses only come every 15 minutes, so we could be waiting an hour or more just to catch a bus. We walk a little further up the road to an area that will be better to get picked up and order an Uber.
View from our hotel room at night
The hotel we are staying at, The Pullman, has a "Pillow Menu" where you can choose from several different options. One option is feather pillow, which is what I usually sleep with at home. Earlier I had requested one from the front desk. However I had put the "Do not disturb" sign on the door so they left a note saying they were unable to deliver the pillow. When we had stopped in to look into the beach I had made the request again, and this time the pillows are in the room. I'm looking forward to a good night of sleep!
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