20060528 Sunday to Sydney, New South Wales, OZ    Map Link           Photo Link  

Up & out, put luggage in the car & took Dolores to church, then returned to the motel to check out. Handled those financial details, then drove around Port Douglas for a while. 

The little steam train (running on former sugar-cane train tracks of 2-foot gauge) was supposed to run today, so I tracked it down. They have two little engines built around 1950 that pull custom-built passenger cars a couple of miles. Took pictures, talked a bit.

Then I picked up Dolores & set out for Cairns. We took it easy coming down the coast and eventually got to the domestic terminal to check it. The place was jammed to the gills with people wearing tags saying "GM Parts", and their city (Detroit, Dallas, Minneapolis, Modesto, to name a few). Turns out there was some sort of rewards thing for GM Parts folks - they flew to Cairns Thursday, to Sydney today and back to the US on Wednesday. Sounds like a killer trip. I'm glad they aren't going back with us on Tuesday.

The flight was uneventful, but at Sydney, it took forever for our luggage to come out the track; the GM folks must have brought everything with them.

We took a cab into town to the Darling Harbour Holiday Inn. Nice room, not too expensive.

We walked down the east side of Darling Harbour to Nick's Seafood and ate dinner there. Very nice, but quite a bit cooler than Port Douglas.

Walked back & read for a while, watched a movie about the Aussie/UN participation in the East Timor struggle of 1999 (timely what with the flap going on there again now). Off to bed.

20060529 Monday  Sydney, NSW, OZ       Photo Link    

Up at a leisurely hour, then grabbed a cab to Circular Quay. Had breakfast and caught the Bondi Explorer. The BE is a regular bus that goes around a fixed circuit; you can hop off and get back on anywhere during that day. It runs from downtown to the South Heads to Bondi Beach and below, then back into the city.

We rode it and took pictures of opportunity as we went. Some may come out ok. The driver stopped for a couple minutes in two locations with particularly good views. We got out at the Bondi Beach stop and took a bunch of pictures there, mostly the surf and surfers. Rather cool today, so the sunbathers were few.

Back onto the BE and on into the city to Hyde Park. Walked through it to the CBD (Central Business District) to the Queen Victoria Building, where we ate lunch in a sidewalk cafe.

We bought a few souvenirs in shops along the way and at the Northern Territory Outback Center on the back end of Darling Harbour. Then the short hike back to the Holiday Inn.

Now we'll take care of these notes and other details. Eventually we'll go back out and walk to Jordan's Seafood for dinner - we had dinner there our first night in Australia, so we'll do our last night's dinner there as well.

Back from dinner at Jordan's. Our waiter from a month ago recognized us & asked how we'd found Australia. We told him of some of our wonderful times. He seemed very happy that we’d had a good trip.

Everyone here finds it really cold tonight at 60*F. Long coats, scarves, etc. Weird.

Now to get onto the internet and send this last set of notes from Australia. The only thing that might follow this is a note when we get home.

Tomorrow, we'll be up early for the cab to the airport and the flight to LAX (yuck).