One of our last days in Sydney saw us board another ferry, this time bound for Manly, a beach town on the far North East of the harbour. The ferries operate on schedules just like busses, and the Opal card lets you just “Tap on” and go. Every time you leave the Circular Quay area of the harbour, you either go past the Opera House or under the Harbour Bridge. It’s very difficult not to take additional photos…
The dock at Manly is right next to the swim beach, and the nice beach is augmented by many small craft moored just offshore.
A bus ride takes you to the North Head Scenic Drive, where you can begin your walk to the cliffs. The views are awesome!
You can see the Sydney skyline in the distance.
Sydney is a huge, modern city. The high rise buildings are beautiful. Here and there between them are wonderful older buildings, like this museum.
The museum is guarded by these huge Egyptian statues. There is currently a big exhibit about Egypt, which we did not attend. We saw a small percentage of the gigantic museum, but it was nice. And cool inside, like the outside wasn’t!
Getting around the city is interesting and fun. Transport around the downtown area is supplemented by this tram; smooth and easy.
For longer distances, like from our hotel, we rode the trains. The system is mostly underground, except around Circular Quay, where it is elevated a couple of stories above the mass of boat docks. The trains are frequent, fast and easy to figure out. We rode a lot… but with all the stairs up and down to the platforms, and of course walking around the city or parks or beaches or wherever, we walked our feet off! Usually 5 – 6 miles per day.
The walking wasn’t made easier by the weather, either… They were having exceptionally hot weather. Over 106º F a couple of times.
You pay a bit to ascend the Sydney Tower, but as you leave they offer a second visit, within a week, for the equivalent of about US$6. So we tried to get some sunset pictures. A problem was that sundown was about 8:45 or so, and the tower closes at 8pm. There were still some views with nice lighting.
At the south end of Hyde park is the Anzac Memorial. Opened in 1934, it was dedicated with this prayer: “To the Glory of God, and as a lasting monument of all the members of the Australian Forces of the State of New South Wales, who served their King and country in the Great War, and especially in grateful remembrance of those who laid down their lives, we dedicate this Anzac Memorial.”
The monument is beautiful, and even more striking as the sun goes down…
On our walk in the park late in the evening, we were startled by seeing huge birds streaking around above the trees. What could they be? When we finally could see them well, we saw they were BATS! Very hard to photograph, but really amazing. There were tons of them! They are Flying Fox Bats… they are the largest in Australia, with a wingspan of slightly over 3 feet! Fascinating watching dozens (hundreds?) of them flying around.
We felt a concert or an opera at the Opera House would be the icing on the cake of a trip to Sydney. (And who doesn’t like cake?)
We couldn’t get tickets to a full opera, but we could attend a performance of the most popular arias from many famous operas. I think it was designed for those of us who are not really frequent opera observers. It was great fun to be in the Opera House, and the show was really great. One man introduced each piece with a brief (often comical) description of the opera and the situation of the song. He then accompanied one or more of the four soloists on the piano. We really enjoyed it!
After the performance, the walk back to the train at Circular Quay was stunning.
Then came the day we flew to New Zealand! Queenstown, to be more precise.
Here’s our first view of New Zealand… guess which plane we arrived in! (Hint: far more than a dozen passengers arrived with us)
Our hotel in Queenstown was wonderful. Even had a washer and dryer! Note how the dryer was installed upside down. The control panel was obviously made to install this way, but all the stickers were still upside down. This made it not only easier to reach in, but more entertaining too! The view from the hotel was awesome!
One outing we were planning to do from Queenstown was a boat trip through Milford Sound. What we didn’t realize months ago, was that the Sound is over 4 hours drive from Queenstown! So we decided to add a second hotel room, in the town of Te Anau, about half way to the sound (and the closest place you can stay.)
So our little room in Te Anau was just that… a little room. A few rooms as part of an RV park, they have no running water, which means no en suite bathroom. The bathroom was very nice, and just a few hundred feet across the campground.
The little town is right on Lake Te Anau, and has nice walking paths.
We even saw an otherwise normal looking couple jump off a dock into what was pretty cold water!
We got up super early, to leave about 5:30am, so we’d have a bit of margin for our 8:45 boat tour.
As the sun rose, we could see detail on the steep mountains flanking the road. Waterfalls were everywhere!
The sun’s first rays seemed to set the mountaintops ablaze!
Signs proclaimed that a long tunnel would be closed at night, until 6:30am. I couldn’t find the tunnel on a map, so didn’t know when we’d hit it. It turns out we didn’t get there till well after that time, so the closure was not an issue. It was an interesting drive through!
Arrival at Milford Sound set the tone for the boat excursion. Absolutely gorgeous. There is no parking at the boat docks, so you pay (dearly) to park in a lot, then walk for 20 mins or so to the docks.
There you find maybe eight different boats, each with a company selling tours of the Sound. The irony is that they all take exactly the same route – up the sound on the west side to the edge of the Tasman Sea, then back down on the east side to the dock. That symmetry is important, because they launch about 5 – 10 minutes apart from each other. So you can see a little trail of tour boats inching along after yours. It’s no problem: the boats are so dwarfed by the immensely tall cliffs that they are hardly noticeable.
It’s about a 2.5 hour tour, with plenty of time to loiter around impressive waterfalls or interesting seals.
Our cool captain eased our boat right into the spray underneath this waterfall. Everyone could get as wet as they liked! The guide said tradition has it that if you are “Kissed by the mist of this waterfall, you will emerge as if 10 years younger.” Well, we were mist kissed, and I guess we look as young as possible.
The “U” shaped valleys were carved by glaciers. Rivers tend to cut “V” shaped valleys.
As we approach the end of the tour, we again see this waterfall that features a “fountain” that seems to jut straight out from the main flow.
Our captain took us on a wonderful tour. I can recommend RealNZ tours, but I bet any of the others would have been great too.
So we drove back to Te Anau for a quick lunch, before hitting the road to Queenstown and our “real” hotel room.
Instead of that, we invited this adorable French couple to share our table at the savory pie shop, and we had such a great time we lingered for a couple of hours! Thomas and Chloe are taking a year off, to spend quality time with little Juliette, and see the world! They are in a camper van here in New Zealand. They are having a great time, and doing all kinds of adventuring activities, but admit the camper van seems a bit small. (Reinforcing that I’m glad we opted for the hotel route instead of a tiny RV!)
So we had lots of fun with our new friends, and finally, reluctantly, had to set off for Queenstown to end our week.
PS: the savory pies were delicious!!
For some reason the pics in New Zealand were blank and so missed reminiscing our visit to Milford Sound a few years past.