From there we had a leisurely walk to the middle of the city, where we told some riddles as we waited for a walking tour to start. Then, our tour began. We were told about the history of St. Andrew's Cathedral and the Sydney Town Hall. From there we walked to the Queen Victoria Building, and from the outside it looked to be a sandstone building of about 200 years. However, the inside looked as modern mall as could be. After walking through the building we arrived at a street corner, home of the only terrorist attack in Sydney (and maybe Australia's but I don't recall) history. Apparently MANY international officials were present but I don't believe anyone was killed.
Then we turned back inside and headed down into a series of tunnels that apparently coat the depth of the city. They seem do be extensions of the malls and designed to lose tourists and then get them to buy stuff. Very clever... anyway, we exit the tunnels in front of the Sydney Tower, the tallest building in the city. It very much looks to be the spire with a viewing platform. It reminded me of the Space Needle in Seattle? (Not sure if that's the right name...)
We continued to Hyde Park, the home of St. James Cathedral. While the tour did not go inside we hope to find our way in in the next few days. We continued past different parts of what used to be the Rum Hospital. Yes... it was a hospital funded entirely by rum. Turns out the government gave exclusive Rum selling rights to 3 men if they made the hospital. Now it is the home of a hospital, the mint, parliament building and the state library. We then cut back towards the town center to Australia Square where we had a bit of a lunch break.
Then we headed to Circular Quay, a part of the harbor where much of the docking occurs. From there we could see both the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. But we spent little time there and headed west through the Rocks. The Rocks used to be a piece of land owned and inhabited by convicts, home of many gangs and violence, but currently restored and quite nice. Once through we headed north again to the base of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. From there our views simply went from good to better, both of the bridge and the Opera House. Not much past here our tour ended but Margaret and I continued on a bit.
We walked from the bridge all around the harbor until we reached the opera house. By this time the sun had come out from hiding in clouds and was absolutely oppressive. But, it was great to have blue sky's and sun for the rest of the day, as we climbed the stairs to see the Opera House closer up we were hit by a brief but passing sun shower.
We then continued our loop back toward the hostel, first by heading through the Royal Botanic Gardens and they were quite beautiful. A huge selection of trees with sporadic glimpses of bits of the harbor of gardens and flower beds behind. I can't even begin to talk about the types of trees so I wont even try. Eventually we started walking through small groves of lower trees and shrubbery, where we started to see the large population of local spiders.
But, the spiders were nothing compared to the wildlife next. As we approached another grove I spotted a flock approaching... but this flock turned out to be giant bats! They are apparently inhabiting a cluster of these trees, much to the chagrin of the local maintainers. However, as we passed through the grove the bats were EVERYWHERE! They were in every tree and seemingly as populated as the peeves themselves. It was awesome and terribly creepy at the same time.
That was about the end of the garden and we headed back to the hostel with some small sites on the way. There we checked in and showered and then headed back out. We opted to do dinner in china town, as it is chinese new year... but oddly enough ended up at a japanese place. We've been trying to avoid that food type as we'll be in Japan, but we couldn't help it (we are still waiting on sushi though). It was good and then we headed back to the hostel, where we had a beer (very refreshing!) And some post dinner snacks. Meanwhile we planned a general outline for the next few days.
Hopefully the weather stays nice. That said, the grass is always greener on the other side. At one point today I found myself thinking: "what I wouldn't give for a bit of snow..." Ah, oh well. Miss everyone back home (any of the various homes I have right now!)
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