Exploring Australia&NZ Day 12

Day 12 - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 – Explore Sydney's Opera House; Independent Exploration; Dinner at Waterfront Restaurant

We woke up to a little blue sky this morning – what a beautiful view when the sun is shining!

The program this morning to tour the Sidney Opera House was not until 9:30 giving us plenty of time to eat our breakfast and talk with the people on our tour.

We have found this group to be very friendly and exceptionally considerate about being on time.

Our hotel is centrally located and we can walk to most of the main sites in the city center area. There were hundreds of small cafés and coffee shops and right down the street was a huge underground shopping center with a large grocery store.

We met Leigh and almost all of our group for a ten minute walk to the Wharf and Sydney Opera House. Several have been to the city before and chose not to go on the tour.

There were many people on the streets as the long Easter and ANZAC holidays are over and the locals have had to go back to work.

As we walked to the Harbour, we made a slight detour and went to the Sydney Public Library where we saw a replica of the whole city. This model is built under a glass floor in the main lobby. It was very helpful to get our bearings and to see an overview of the city.

Leigh led us to the Opera House, the most visited tourist attraction in Australia. Odyssey had provided us with a private tour and our guide Trish gave us headsets so we could hear her without disrupting the other groups.

The architect of the structure was the Dane, Jorn Utzon who won the contest as the most unique design for the Center for the Performing Arts. The individual sails cocoon the various theaters within the center.

The Opera House is home to the Opera Australia, Sydney Theater Company, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra and has visiting performances every day of the year. There are even weddings celebrated in the center.

We entered the Opera Center, the second largest shell where 1005 seats offer the audience perfect acoustics. The seats, floors, and ceilings are all made of various types of wood to balance the sound.

The ballet is being performed now and we saw a few dancers warming up and stretching giving us a glimpse of the rigor these artists go through before each practice and performance.

The complex, begun in 1959, had an estimated cost 7 million dollars and the time for completion being three years. Sixteen years and 102 million dollars later, the Sydney Opera House finally opened.

Our next stop was the Concert Hall where Jake, a worker was testing the acoustics. He played several selections on his harmonica for us – what a treat to hear the sounds of the concert hall – imagine a symphony!

We finished our tour at 11:20 and had the rest of the afternoon on our own. Jim and Mary Ann and Gennie and I saw the scattered clouds but mostly blue skies and thought it would be a great time to walk across the Harbour Bridge.

With our map and a relatively good sense of direction, we found the stairs to Argyle Street and the walkway to the Bridge. We talked to three people who were on the OAT Australia trip and their adventures sounded very interesting.

We began our walk across the bridge and saw groups tethered to the top of the arches of the bridge. There is a tour that takes these people up to the top and over the bridge; the cost is $200 per person.

I decided not to do this as you cannot take one’s own camera – an object falling from this height could seriously hurt someone below. But our walk was exciting – as soon as we reached the first tower we were pelted by driving rain and wind.

We got into one of the Pylons and waited out the storm for about 15 minutes. The rain had passed so we got back on to the foot path and enjoyed the remainder of the walk to the other end of the bridge and back to our starting point.

By the time we had reached the bottom of the bridge and the wharf it was 1:00 and we had worked up an appetite for lunch. We knew we were going out for dinner tonight with the group so we settled on ice cream at the Royal Copenhagen Ice Cream, the best ice cream any of us had every tasted!

We spent the remainder of the afternoon walking off our lunch past the downtown, to the Royal Botanical Gardens. We went past the Hospital to have our photo taken with the wild boar, a replica of the one in Florence, Italy and a gift of that city to Sydney.

And then we found Martin Place for a look at the war memorials. We made our way to Wynyard Station, the underground Shopping Center grocery store for a few snacks and then right to our near-by hotel.

We arrived home to the Amora at 3:00 with plenty of time to look at photos and start the journal. We could see the rain as it overtook the city – always interesting at this height almost above the clouds.

Jim and Mary Ann came over to our room for Happy Hour at 5:00 and then we joined our group at 6:00 for a walk to the Rocks and dinner. The rain had stopped and it was a very pleasant 64º with 77 % humidity.

Dinner was at the Waterfront Restaurant, a very nice meal with salt & pepper prawns, a wonderful white fish; barramundi, vegetables, and potatoes. Dessert was a lemon and lime tart served with passion fruit sauce and it was to die for!

Because the original Australian tour would have ended today with a flight to New Zealand tomorrow, this meal was scheduled to be our Farewell Dinner. Now because of the earthquake in Christchurch, we have two more days in Sydney.

Accommodations: Amora Jamison Sydney - - - Meals: Breakfast, Dinner

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