Jun 20 - G'Day Mate from Sydney

Sydney here I come!!! As I look at my itinerary I still can’t realize why I only decided to spend one night in Sydney, my mistake I should have realized this earlier but can’t do much about it, so I'm going to make the best of what I can in the next 1.5 in Sydney. But before we head there, I do want to let everyone know I still have been following the World Cup and did manage to sit  and watch the game between Spain and Tunisia at the airport, saw Tunisia headed towards an upset but a single goal was not going to win the game.Finally the Spaniards came to their senses and eventually won it 3-1.

Now that is out of my system lets get going to Sydney. It was gorgeous day in Auckland clear blue skies and just the right weather to be staying back, but I was headed to Sydney.  Anyway the flight time to Sydney was around 3:20 min from Auckland and it was smooth ride over. I watched Eight Below (had no other choice) on the plane, it was Okaaaay. Got in around 10:30 am in Sydney and the fact that I did not have any luggage was a blessing so whizzed through immigration and security to come outside to a very warm Sydney. I had totake my jacket off immediately as it was quite warm. Here I waited for the shuttle bus to take to me to my hotel, Marriott Sydney Harbor and I am glad I choose this place as it was right smack on the harbor and downtown so there were a lot of things I could cover by foot. With the rest of day ahead of me, I made quick stop down at concierge and asked him on what I should be doing based on the time I was spending in Sydney.  He suggested the Harbor Ferry Tour which would cover most of things Sydney Harbor, Harbor Bridge, Opera House and Darling Harbor. Excited about covering all those I hopped on the next Ferry that left and was well on my way exploring the Harbor area. Man, you cannot justify the beauty of this place in pictures and it is worth seeing it in person it is truly amazing. The Sydney Opera House does stand as the major Icon for the city and now I was here, I had finally made it.

After about a 20 min ferry ride to Darling Harbor, I got off and walked through the Chinese Garden of Friendship and had fish n chips at Doyle’s. There found a lot of folks talking about Whale watching, having never done that before I said, why not and headed to Whale Watching (did not realize it was going to be 2 hrs, always ASK!!!). I guess I could have spent more time exploring other areas as well, but really this one shot I took was truly made the whole trip worth it. It’s in the slide show on the left. The next 2 hrs were spent seeing about 15 whales (mostly Humpbacks), if you have not done this it is certainly worth doing it at least once.

As the sun started to set we headed back to the Harbor, I wanted to make sure I at least got some shots at the Harbor, so I asked this lady on the boat to take some pictures. Man did she suck!!! I have to go back tomorrow to get some shots with sun being in front of me instead of behind me.  I found a nice Kebab shop near the hotel and grabbed a nice bite to eat there before heading to Manly Cove on a quick ferry ride from the Harbor.

This place is truly amazing and was buzzing with life and tourists. After a quick stop at Blue Water I made it to the beach, the sound of the waves was very soothing and I almost fell asleep at Manly Beach. Well at that point I knew I had to gather strength and make it back to my hotel as I had a long day ahead of me and was going to get up to watch Sweden vs England.