11:00! I was allowed to stay in bed until 11:00! Yippee!
We wrote our journals which took us until 12:30 and then decided we should go into the city and follow our forgotten plans of yesterday.
We eventually got on the bus after 13:00 and went directly into the city, ambled around the Anzac memorial and Hyde Park and had an Italian, alfresco at the edge of Hyde Park. Then, having photographed the sacred ibis, we made our way to Sydney Opera House situated by Circular Quay at Port Jackson. The opera house is not the brilliant white you imagine it to be. It's off white with two tone diamond shaped tiles. It presents some wonderful opportunities for photographs, especially the setting against a brilliant blue sky. It was a pity, for several reasons, that the sky was tainted with bush fire smoke. Inside was dingy, certainly not the glamour you would expect of such an elaborate building, but then I only saw inside the foyer. Across the harbour Sydney Harbour Bridge looked fantastic with traffic racing over it and yachts gracefully gliding beneath it. From the quay you can see harnassed walkers climbing up to the top of the bridge.
We sat by the harbour wall and enjoyed an ice-cream. Ian's dive computer revealed that the temperature was 40 degrees in the sun but with the strong breeze across the harbour it felt much cooler. A stroll into the city again, this time in search of some camera film to replenish my ever diminishing stock, to find most shops now closed, at 17:45. Back to the Circular Quay to find a West Indian fellow playing steel drums to 'One Love' and thoroughly enjoying himself. Round the corner an aborigine was playing a didgeridoo.
We wandered around the Royal Botanic Gardens and then made our way past the Domain to Oxford Street where we had arranged to meet Mark and Cronan for a Thai dinner. A 30 minute wait for the bus home seemed not to be an option so we grabbed a taxi and had a very uncomfortable bumpy ride home to a relaxing evening and hydrating drinks. Ian's been feeling rather sleepy all day since his late night last night and is the only one having an alcoholic beverage tonight.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.