Well today is our last full day in Australia. We decided to do a little shopping as we haven’t done much of that. So after breakfast at the B&B, we walked to the Queen Victoria Building that is a very impressive structure built in the 1800’s. It has 4 floors, domed roofs, beautiful stained glass, tiled floors and an animated clock that hangs from the center of the building. The bathrooms were all marble including the floors, walls, and sinks. We bought a few items and then headed to Hyde Park, the oldest public park in Australia.
Hyde Park has beautiful gardens and is lined with huge fig trees. St. Mary’s Church is across the street and it is massive. We then walked to Domain Park and then to the Royal Botanical Gardens. The gardens were beautiful and there was a big palm tree section with exotic cactus and palms. We saw many birds by the water and there were loud screeching noises coming from the trees which we thought were more birds. They were bats, hundreds of them hanging in the trees upside down with their wings around them. They were the biggest, ugliest bats I had ever seen. And they were everywhere. Really creeped me out. Yikes.
Then we walked to the Sydney Opera House and along the harbor. Just beautiful. We had been walking for about 3 hours, so we decided to have lunch at Café Sydney which is a posh Café on the 5th floor of the Customs House overlooking the harbor and of course the Sydney Opera House. We weren’t really dressed appropriately as most of the people there were in business suits, but ‘no worries’ we had a delicious lunch.
Our next adventure was to climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It is quite the trip. They are very serious about safety as you climb to 440 feet. You spend an hour going through orientation with 11 other people. They provide jump suits. You take a breathalizer test. You go through a metal detector. If you have glasses they must be hooked to your suit. They provide hats that are hooked to your suit. You can’t wear jewelry or have cameras or carry anything. You have a radio transmitter and headphones so you can hear the guide at all times. You are hooked to a cable for the entire climb. You climb steep steel ladders and at one point you are climbing up between 6 lanes of traffic. Another time you are climbing down between 2 lines of speeding trains. But the best part is climbing on top of the span to 440 feet high. The view is spectacular and it is worth everything you have to go through to get there. We definitely want to do it again.
We got back to the room and got ready for dinner. We decided to go to the restaurant that my Food and Wine Magazine had given a top rating to. It was right on the harbor overlooking the bridge and the opera house. We sat in a glass- enclosed circle which was so cool. The service was superb and the food was fabulous. A wonderful way to end the trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment