Australia/Hawaii 2002, part 7: Sydney (day 3)

There's a point in here where I mention my then-new digital camera and how I had to empty the flash card daily to make room for the next day's photos - it only held 190 pictures, and at the size I was taking, that means it was a 64MB card. With my current camera, I'd get maybe 30 pictures. I still copy all my day's photos onto my computer today, but that's for fear if I lose the camera I don't want to lose everything (and I did lose my camera in 2009 in Hong Kong, but that's another story).

Photos from today can be found here.

Saturday, September 28: Sydney
On the Waterfront

Saturday is the day to sleep in, at least in my house. So I slept all the way til 9 a.m., which is like 3 hours before I usually get up at home. But there were places to go, things to see, boats to catch…



Out of the hotel around 9:30, I hit the first of the weekend marketplaces, literally steps from the hotel. The Rocks Market, open Saturday and Sunday only, is kind of a cross between a flea market and tourist trap. George Street is closed off from right outside the hotel front door up to the end near the Bridge, and covered booths are set up selling anything from homemade jam to new and used books to souvenirs to photos and paintings. It reminded me of a more upscale version of the weekend marketplace I saw last Sunday in Alice Springs. I picked up a 2000 Sydney Olympics pin from one guy who had hundreds of different pins; I got the generic logo, but he had a selection ranging from the various sporting events to the daily countdown til opening to NBC Sports. I’m sure that during the height of the Olympics (September 2000 – wow, was that really two years ago?) the pins were a bit more expensive on the trading market. I was also on the lookout for a coffee-table picture book about either Australia or Sydney itself, but didn’t see anything I wanted. Then it was off to the Paddington Market, located (naturally) in the Paddington suburb of Sydney, southeast of where I was staying. That meant taking the bus, and fortunately there was one that dropped me off just a block away. This market was a lot more like the one in Alice Springs, not necessarily lower class or lower quality, just less polished. This market had more clothes, in particular women’s clothes, but also several booths with used books, watches (I had decided to start looking for a replacement for my dive watch, which after its recent battery replacement and cleaning over the summer wasn’t quite as waterproof as it was supposed to be), the usual digeridoo booth (these shops are all over the place, I’m sure they sell only to tourists), etc. Your typical outdoor weekend market, really. At the back of the market was a food section, where I got some takeaway sushi and a Coke for lunch, and some fudge for a sugar snack to save for the rest of my trip (I’d just need to remember to put it in the refrigerator and not forget it when I leave). In all, a relaxing morning of just wandering around among the tourists and locals.

I even made it back to Circular Quay in time to catch the afternoon ferry cruise that circles the Harbour.

The city of Sydney pretty much surrounds both sides of Sydney Harbour, with suburbs and subdivisions all over the place. Of course, the most expensive real estate is on the water, but there’s a lot of coastline to cover. Looking at a map, the Harbour looks a lot like a Norwegian fjord with all these nooks and crannies, which are called Coves and Bays down here. The afternoon ferry cruise starts at Circular Quay, the hub of the ferry traffic in Sydney, and heads east towards the Opera House right at the northeast corner of Circular Quay. The building is still an amazing, mesmerizing sight, this time we get to see it from the head-on perspective, looking out over the water. Past the Royal Botanic Gardens is Mrs. Maquarie’s Chair, the site of all those pictures of the Opera House nestled right next to the Harbour Bridge. The cruise follows the southern shore, so the best seats are on the right side of the boat; I’m on one of the outside decks, I want to see all of this with my own eyes, unfiltered by the plexiglass of the cabin. There are hundreds of water-view homes and apartments, each more expensive-looking than the next, in Elizabeth Bay, Double Bay, and Rose Bay. Since it’s Saturday, everyone who owns a boat is out on the Harbour sailing around. The wind is pretty strong and we see more than one capsized boat, the occupants either trying to right the craft or waiting for someone to come along and help them. It seems like each bay and cove has its own marina, one of which (I forgot the name) is the start of the annual Sydney to Hobart (Tasmania) Regatta. The voice on the loudspeaker says it’s an incredible sight to see all those sailing vessels leaving the Harbour all at once. The voice also tells us that during the 2000 Olympics, many of the water-based events such as sailing, canoeing, etc., were held here in the Harbour, and the best seats for the events were on the ferries that were still continuing their point to point traffic. Up past the exclusive domains of Vaucluse and Watson’s Bay (home of the famous Doyle’s Restaurant, where I plan to eat dinner) we get to “The Heads”, the opening of Sydney Harbour into the Pacific Ocean. It’s strange to think about the Pacific on the east coast, by the way. It’s quite windy as we go through that region towards the Middle Harbour (the whole Harbour has three main inlets, this is the middle one and the main one is the southern one), between Middle Head and Grotto Point. There’s a bridge in there, called Spit Bridge, which is a drawbridge that only opens a few times per day on a schedule. Since the ferry is too big, it has to time things such that it can get in and out; if it’s too early we wait, if it’s too late then we wait. This time we’re right on time, so we only have to wait a couple minutes before proceeding to Sugarloaf Bay and Middle Cove. More fabulous houses, more marinas, and more beaches like we saw on the southern shores. Up this part of the Harbour, there’s a lot more forested areas and rocky sandstone hills, dotted here and there with impressive hillside homes. On the way back we’re early for the bridge, so we have to wait about 10 minutes, then it’s a leisurely cruise south past Bradley’s Head and the Taronga Park Zoo (which I plan to go to tomorrow). Along the way we see Shark Island and Fort Denison in the middle of the Harbour, each with their lighthouses and with their own histories ranging from being quarantine centers to military presences. The cruise ends with a quick trip under the Harbour Bridge and back, after nearly 3 hours coming back to its berth in Circular Quay. I saw a lot more on this cruise than I would have had time for had I gone on land, and it looked prettier from the water. But it gave me a good overview of this part of the city, its history with relation to the water, and a look at stuff I didn’t have time for on this trip. If I had my regular film camera with me, I would have taken the equivalent of about 3 rolls of film just on this cruise, but fortunately my digital camera lets me take up to 190 pictures before the card is filled up. I did have to replace the batteries, though, which I was finding I had to do more than expected when I was taking a lot of pictures.

The ferry got back to Circular Quay about 3:20, which left me plenty of time to go back up to my hotel and get ready for the next segment which started at 3:45, the blue Bondi Explorer bus out to the famous Bondi Beach area. This bus and the red Sydney Explorer bus are aimed strictly at tourists, taking a couple hours to see the main sights of the city. They’re designed so that you can get off at any of the stops and then catch the next bus that stops there about every 20-30 minutes. The red bus goes around The Rocks, the Central Business District (CBD), and Darling Harbour, while the blue bus heads out east towards Bondi Beach. I bought a 7-day SydneyPass when I got into the airport on Thursday, which gives me unlimited use of the regular metro bus, the ferry, the trains, a round-trip on the airport shuttle, and both Explorer Buses. I figured that I’d be there parts of 6 days (Thursday to Tuesday) so I got the 7-day pass. In retrospect, I didn’t use it on Thursday (the airport shuttle is included but doesn’t count towards the number of days the pass is valid for) and I wasn’t going to use it on Tuesday going back to the airport, so I could have gotten away with just a 4-day pass. Oh well, I’ll know better for next time.

The Bondi Explorer bus goes east along the southern coast of the Harbour all the way up to Watson’s Bay, just south of South Head (the southern part of The Heads that we saw earlier, where the Harbour opens up to the ocean), passing Wooloomooloo (home of the Royal Australian Navy and Harry’s Café de Wheels) and the King’s Cross area (home of the city’s red light district). The bus then turns south along the ocean past Bondi, Bronte, and Coogee Beaches, back up through Centennial Park (home of the Sydney Cricket Ground and Sydney Football Stadium, where the Sydney Roosters are to play the Brisbane Broncos tonight in a semi-final match of the National Rugby League), Hyde Park, and back to Circular Quay. I didn’t take the bus the whole round trip, though, I got off about halfway at Bondi Beach. This is arguably the most famous beach in Sydney, and it was the site of beach volleyball during the Olympics. The plan was to check out the Bondi area, walk down to Bronte Beach on a paved path along the rocky coast, then catch a bus back up to Watson’s Bay for dinner.

The beaches in this part of Sydney are strange looking, matching what we saw on the inner Harbour. There’s a cove, and along the water for part of the way there’s a beach, but beyond that it’s all rocky cliffs. I have no idea whether any of these beaches are artificial, but I’m used to beaches being endless stretches of sand, which these definitely weren’t. On the off-chance I’d be able to go swimming, I brought along my bathing suit, but although there were some dedicated sun-worshippers with no wetsuits in the water, I thought it was just a bit too chilly to do more than stick my foot in the water: the air temperature was 72 degrees, and the water was a brisk 61 degrees. While on Bondi I found out that the Brisbane Lions beat the Collingwood Magpies in the Australian Rules Football (aka “Aussie Rules”) Grand Final earlier in the day. I had wanted to see an AFL match while I was here, but the only game left was the Grand Final and it was in its traditional home of Melbourne. At sunset, I took the path south to Bronte Beach, which is something that’s pretty much universally recommended when in these parts. Of course, I neglected to look at the bus schedule before I left Bondi, and I got to the Bronte bus stop just in time to see the bus pull away. The next one wasn’t for another hour, so I walked back to Bondi and took a bus up to Watson’s Bay (only 12 km from the CBD). Everyone says that you have to go to Doyle’s for dinner one night; it’s an institution that’s been in the family for over 100 years (and they serve great food). Turns out there’s a Doyle’s on the Wharf and a Doyle’s on the Bay right next to each other; they serve similar food, but they’d rather have two restaurants next to each other than have something else move in. The waitress recommended the grilled barramundi, which came with chips (French fries), and I had a side of garlic bread and a Doyle’s Fisherman’s Lager (according to the label, you can get it in the store as a Malt Shovel Golden Lager). After dinner I stopped to talk with a couple from the area who overheard me telling the waitress that I was from Texas (she asked based on my non-Aussie accent where in the US or Canada I was from), and we discussed the people and places I had been, how they had lived in Australia all their lives and hadn’t done as much as I had in the last 10 days or so.

Finally making it back to the hotel, I changed and went out to King’s Cross. It’s a multiple-personality area: there are some apparently great restaurants and hotels in the area, but by night it turns into the city’s red-light district, with “adult entertainment” storefronts right next to convenience stores, nightclubs, youth hostels, restaurants, and hotels. I also found out that if you stay out too late, there’s not much in the way of public transportation to get you all the way back to where I was going. The train from King’s Cross goes back to the City Centre Station, but the buses going north from there back to Circular Quay are few and far between. I wound up taking a cab back to the hotel, where I found that you can put the fare on your credit card.