Sydney - Spot On!

With only two days in Sydney, we knew we would only get a small taste of Australia's largest city, but we definitely made the most of our limited time. Our first afternoon and evening was spent at the top of the Sydney Tower with 360 degree views of the CBD and harbour. We stuck around to enjoy the sun setting down over Darling Harbour. Included in the tower ticket was a ride on OzTrek-- similar to the Te Papa ride in Wellington, but dissimilar in that it didn't break another rib!

After sunset, we strolled over to Hyde Park where a concert and film festival was going on. After seeing St. Mary's Cathedral, we sat down on the park grass and enjoyed the music and independent film clips. We ate pizza from the local Doughboy vendor in the park but it wasn't enough to fill us up, so we grabbed food from a local Turkish shop downtown. It was delicious! On our walk back to the Westin hotel, we found a McDonalds with free wi-fi.... and McFlurries! I have missed blended soft-serve almost as much as I had missed having internet access, so it was quite a good combo. Funny how I haven't been to a McD's in the states in nearly a decade.

Our last full day of vacation was spent enjoying everything Sydney had to offer. We stuffed ourselves with a fantastic (and free!) hot breakfast buffet at the Westin before heading to the botanical gardens. We walked through most of the beautiful open space before heading out to Mrs. Macquarie's Chair. This is the point far out at the end of the gardens that is bus-accessible where the classic shots of the opera house and bridge are taken. I think we were probably the only walking tourists here and definitely the only ones who spoke English! The views on the walk out there were second-to-none.

From here, we walked along the shore of Farm Cove and through the Opera House before reaching Circular Quay where we did a bit of shopping before boarding a harbor ferry (what'cha call me?) to Darling Harbour. The ferry ride gave us excellent views of the CBD under the harbor bridge with the opera house in view.

We explored Darling Harbour's shops, restaurants, and walked through the expansive pedestrian area (this really was a nicely designed walking area!). Rather than taking the ferry back, we chose to walk across the Pyrmont bridge and back through the CBD to our hotel. After all this walking, we needed to clean up!We knew we wanted to head back to Mrs. M's point for a sunset shot with this incredible iconic view of Sydney. The botanic gardens closed their gates at 6 pm so we thought we'd have just enough time. We walked the 3km each way to Mrs. M's and got some pretty wonderful shots of the bridge and opera house at sunset. We lingered a bit too long and ended up getting warned by the police to vacate the gardens. Not wanting to get in trouble, we sprinted out of the park nearly causing me an asthma attack. Totally worth it though!
For our last dinner of our wonderful vacation it had to be none other than the best seafood restaurant in Sydney-- Peter Doyles'. Sitting on the end of the pier in Circular Quay, we had fantastic views of the bridge and opera house at night while enjoying the marvelous fish of the day. The turkish pesto appetizer and garlic bread were also great!