First Days in Sydney

Yesterday we arrived in Sydney around 7am… after 29 gruelling hours of travel!! We had to take all of our worldly possessions with us on the plane, so we had 8 bags (4 giant rolling suitcases, 3 overstuffed backpacks, and a laptop bag) with us. We took the CityRail train from the airport to Circular Quay and thankfully someone helped us manhandle all of our bags onto the train before the doors shut! From Circular Quay, we lugged our bags to the wharf where we caught a ferry across Sydney Harbour to Manly Wharf. We took turns guarding our bags, so that we could go out on the top deck and take looks around our new home city. The ride took about 30 minutes, and we passed right by the opera house before landing at Manly. Then I gave my cousin, Paddy, a call and she came by and picked us up.

The rest of the day was low-key, we settled into her place, searched around on the internet for flats, and tried not to fall asleep. We arrived on Australia Day so in the evening we had a barbeque with Paddy’s flatmates. A very nice (but very sleepy) first day in Australia.

I slept solidly last night and didn’t end up getting out of bed until 10am or so (that’s 3pm PST). I was all for lazing around the house for another day, but Kara wanted to get out and see something, so I said “if you plan it, I’ll go.” She talked to Paddy, and decided that we’d go down to Manly Beach for a look around. We caught the bus near Paddy’s place and eventually made it down there after some bus confusion. Once there, we walked down the Corso (a pedestrian walkway) from the bus stop to Manly Beach.

As this is Australia Day weekend, there were lots of races (swimming, rowing, etc) taking place on the beach. There were people all lined up on the shore watching, as announcers on loudspeakers shouted out the race results. The beaches were mostly closed to random people, so we walked along the beach on a nice pedestrian path until we reached Shelly Beach. Here there were no organized sports, so we walked to the water and stood in the surf a bit to feel the water temperature (maybe a little colder than Maui winter temps, but definitely not bad). We explored the park and discovered a nature walk in an area called the Cabbage Tree Reserve. Lots of nice sea cliff views and a short bush walk. There were TONS of freaky spiders everywhere, we assumed they weren’t poisonous since people were walking all around them. We also saw a blue tongued lizard just hanging out under a tree, it looked a lot like this! Then we walked all the way back, had a lunch of doner kebab, and then caught the bus back to Paddy’s.

This evening we went to a nice dinner party at Paddy’s friends’ house. We chatted about all sorts of things and had a yummy dinner. Now we’re back at Paddy’s house, it’s past midnight and I’m ready to hit the hay (or whatever they call it down here).