View over the harbour from our plane, leaving Sydney
We planned to start with a Chinese meal and some crispy duck (still craving this after a failure to find it in China, I guess), but it was nowhere to be found in Chinatown - is it one of those UK inventions? And we then spent quite a while trying to find somewhere to stay Friday and Saturday night - not the easiest thing to do on short notice, apparently. Sorted it in the end.
Our first full day took us past some great Year of the Tiger sculptures, and then to the Museum of Contemporary Arts - I initially wrote a note that this was "rubbish". Lilly told me off for this so I spent 15 years drafting a greatly revised and expanded account. Unfortunately I have had to edit this due to space restrictions. It is mostly rubbish. (Lilly enjoyed the video installations by Sylvia Blocher.)
Year of the Tiger by night
Then we wandered to The Rocks, the oldest part of colonial Sydney, which was reclaimed from being the roughest part of town a few years ago. It now appears ridiculously gentrified with old buildings used to full effect, lots of old wood and brick on display - artificial but nice. There's also a little museum about the area, but its stories are more interesting than its artefacts (gasp! Broken 19th century plates!).
We got our first view of the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge - which is handy, since we had decided to climb it.
Yes, I can confirm that the bridge is taller than Lilly
A bunch of politicians were taken up for the bicentenary in 1988 and this spun off into a tourist industry - you can walk under the road, climb some steep metal ladders, and walk up the arch to the top. This is expensive but a great experience, recommended to me by Chris while we were in Christchurch. I never thought Lilly would want to but much to my surprise she came up too! The whole group is wired to a rail, so there is no going back once you start... But it's not as scary as you might think. Once you get to the top of the arch, it just curves* gently up in front of you. Lilly's least favourite bit was the first, lowest section where you can see through the grille beneath your feet.
* Interesting fact - there is no curved metal in the bridge. Up close you can see that the 'curve' of the arch is a lot of straight girders with small angles in between.
There was a bit of a wind - only a 2/10 though, I was told, but enough to blow my cap off once (tied to me, unlike the time it blew off on the steamship in Queenstown and I managed to catch it behind my head) - and the sun mostly came out. Which is just as well, since they climb in all weather conditions. We had to change into jumpsuits and leave behind anything that could fall onto the cars and trains below - including cameras, unfortunately. But they do throw in a free ticket to climb one of the less high concrete pillars and get a half-similar view.
The views from the top are excellent, and there's never any hurry - we could take our time to enjoy them. Although in a sense you're paying a lot for a view, it's a really good experience.
The guide has a camera and you can buy photos... or download a low-res version for free if you're cheap. It makes for a good snap, to be fair
After that we swung past the Opera House - we'd never noticed before that the 'wings' are tiled - and had a quick drink outside, which is a nice spot with a good view of the bridge we'd just been up!
On our way out through the park we were astonished to see a giant bat fly overhead. And then another. And then more! Then we realised there were whole trees of fruit bats. The sun hadn't even set. I know intellectually that there are lots of animals etc in Australia that you wouldn't expect to see elsewhere, but this was still weird - it feels like a European or North American city (a mix of modern and reasonably old and grand buildings,
and the weather fits, not too hot or sunny), and then this bursts your bubble.
We finished the day with a good curry at Maya da Dhaba in Surry Hills. As usual, Lilly managed to combine this with a scouting exhibition for shops to visit later in the week...
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