Robert's Travels

Once we had cleared Australian customs our first day in Sydney could begin! We made our way to the subway station that is attached to the international terminal, as we wanted to take the train into the city. The New South Wales region has a combined transit system with a single card for fares, named Opal. This card allows you to load money onto it, and then tap it as you get on or off your mode of transport to charge for your trip. We decided that it made sense to pick up an Opal card vs. purchasing one-way trip tickets as we were going to be taking public transit for several of our trips and so the discount of having the card would be worth the effort of holding onto it for the duration of our stay. We got on the Airport Link train (aka T8) headed into the city, and about 15 minutes later got off at the Museum station stop. The train was fairly busy - there were a number of commuters were on the train - but we were able to find space for ourselves and our bags near the carriage door. We then had a quick ten minute walk from the Museum station to our first hotel of the trip, the Sydney Boulevard Hotel. We arrived shortly before 9:00, and checked in without issue. When we checked in our room wasn’t free, however we were given access to the hotel gym and were able to shower and freshen up there. After getting rid of the grime from our 24 hours of travel we went back downstairs to the lobby, where we learned that our room had become available. We took the key, quickly dropped our bags off, and then headed out for the day.

The weather was sunny and warm as we began walking towards the harbour. It didn’t take long before we reached the back of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This gallery is located across the M1 highway from the Royal Botanical Gardens, which we then walked to. We followed Mrs Macquaries Road counterclockwise along the perimeter of the park, initially seeing a pier used by the Australian Navy. On the road we ran into a flock of cockatoos playing in the trees; we were able to get some fun photos as we passed by.

We reached the end of the peninsula and saw Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, a bench carved into the sandstone overlooking the coast that was carved by convicts for the wife of Governor Macquarie in 1911. We passed by a large group of tourists waiting to have their photo taken in the chair, and a very short walk later were greeted by a fantastic view of the Sydney Opera House.

We enjoyed the views of the opera house and took some photos before continuing on, following a walking path that follows the edge of the bay as it continues through the gardens towards the Central Business District. We passed through the main part of the Royal Botanical Gardens, and were treated to a number of beautifully manicured lawns, colourful flower beds and impressive trees.

By this point it was nearly noon and we were starting to get hungry, so we went and found a restaurant on the eastern side of Circular Quay, the main transit station in the Central Business District. We had a nice lunch on a patio and watched the city go by. There were a number of people running along the waterfront, and we both thought how lucky these individuals were to have such a picturesque place to run every day. After lunch we took the opportunity to apply some sunscreen as the sun was out and the rays were staring to feel strong. We continued walking along the harbour and quickly reached the Sydney Opera House. We were able to walk right up to the walls of the building, and see the details of the structure up close. I hadn’t realized that the roof of the building is textured in such a way that it looks kind of like a Faberge egg when the light strikes it, and it was a neat effect to see up close. We also got to see how the architects had built rain management directly into the design of the roof; there are small channels between the tiles that allow water to follow the curve of the structure into basins at the base of the curved roofs. Unfortunately we were not able to go inside as no shows were on, so we had to satisfy our curiosity from the outside.

We continued on, going past the Circular Quay station in search of the Pylon Lookout. The lookout is built into one of the support columns of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and it gives great views back towards the Sydney Opera House. Due to the sun being lower in the sky (with it being late fall) I had been having issues taking photos of the Opera House without the sun being behind it; going to the bridge would give us better lighting to take photos. Along the way we got to see the Argyle Cut, a set of bridges built over top of a road cut into the hillside, as well as the Argyle Stairs (a narrow staircase that led us up from Argyle Street to the Cahill Expressway (which crosses over top of it). From the Cahill Expressway we took a glass elevator ride up to the Sydney Harbour Bridge walkway, and walked partway across the bridge in order to reach the support pylon. We were rewarded with a great view back towards the Opera House and the Central Business District.

We continued our journey by crossing under the Sydney Harbour Bridge road at Argyle Street and walked to the Sydney Observatory. This historic location played an important role in historic Sydney: at 1 PM every day, a ball mounted to the top of the tower would drop, signalling the current time to all the ships in the harbour and allowing them to calibrate their clocks. The observatory was also used as an early meteorological station, and was also used for celestial explorations. The transit of Venus in 1874 was observed at a number of locations across the globe, including the Sydney Observatory. There were a number of historic pieces of meteorological and celestial observing equipment on display, with some really good placards describing their use and evolution to what is used today. The old transit domes were accessible; we could climb the tower and see the telescope but were not able to get too close to it. After touring through the observatory we continued on down towards the Nawi Cove and the walking trails that follow the harbour front. We walked north around the Barangaroo Reserve, a heavily terraced and landscaped park, before reaching the Walumil Lawns where we were treated to views of the Harbour Bridge from the other side.

As we were walking around the Barangaroo Reserve the sun started getting low in the sky. It was only 15:30, however Sydney was well into fall so the sun was setting early in the evening. We took this as our cue to begin heading back in the general direction of our hotel. Our last major stop for the day was the Sydney Tower Eye, whose observation platform gives an unobstructed view of much of downtown Sydney. It wasn’t originally on our plan for the day, but we saw an ad for the Eye in the Sydney airport as we were waiting for our bags and decided to check it out. We reached the mall at the base of the tower shortly after 16:00, watched the (mostly unnecessary) 4D experience, and then waited in line an elevator to take us up. Luckily there wasn’t a large crowd and the elevators held a reasonable number of people so we weren’t waiting long. We reached the observation deck around 16:45; right as the sun was reaching the horizon. This was a great time be in the Eye, as we were able to see the city during both the daylight and the early nighttime. The entire cityscape began lighting up shortly after 17:00, as the sun went below the horizon, which transformed the city. As the sun was setting there was a fair bit of glare on the windows, thankfully it only lasted several minutes and cleared up once the sun disappeared behind the horizon.

We left the tower about 40 minutes later, and decided to have a quick dinner in the food court of the Westfield mall. This mall surrounds the base of the tower, and is where the tower entrance is located. We were originally planning on going back to the hotel to find our dinner venue, but were afraid we would be too tired and just crash upon returning to the hotel so we ended up setting on some fast Vietnamese food. The meal was quick, tasty and filling - after dinner we walked back to the hotel where we had an early evening.

Todd went to bed early, and stayed up a bit and worked on this blog. I then watched the series finale of Game of Thrones - using my work VPN I was able to stream the show using a Crave TV subscription. The episode was a disappointing end to an otherwise great day.