Sydney

We recently took our first trip to Sydney. Colin gave a talk on a Wednesday, and Naomi flew in the next morning for a long weekend. 

Overall impression: What a beautiful city! It has a somewhat different feel from Melbourne. The population is only slightly larger, but it feels much more bustling and seems to have more big buildings. 

It turned out that our friend Heather was passing through Sydney around the same time, and we were able to meet up and walk around. Here's her and Naomi with a certain bridge in the background:

That Opera Place

We resigned ourselves to doing some tourist-y things. Here's a very nice tree in the botanical gardens, with some other stuff in the background:

The Opera House grew on us as we walked around. It's pretty from a distance, and bizarre from up close. The entire white surface involves little tiles like these:

And there's something of a spaceship feel to it:

Around the Opera 

Just east of the opera are the Botanical Gardens. The picture at the top of the post shows one view. Here's another:

Notice the weird white birds in the lower right. We'd only seen them outside the city in Melbourne, but they're everywhere in Sydney.

The park features a carved stone seat that was made for one of the first governor's wife, Mrs. Macquarie. It has since been named "Mrs. Macquarie's Chair."  It has a nice view of the harbor, and people now take turns checking it out. We used it as a destination in our walk around the gardens. Here's Naomi:

To the west of the Opera is the Contemporary Art Museum. Very cool. Here were our favorite pictures, both of which are representative of the city. You may have to click on this to see the top one properly:

Further west is a neighborhood called 'The Rocks,' which is the area where the city began when the convicts first arrived. It still contains some of the early buildings, but has also been made fairly touristy. Here's a cool street view with a mural that shows what it used to look like:

South of the Opera are a number of pretty sandstone buildings. This is the Sydney Hospital (which seems to still be in use). It seemed remarkably well kept and quiet for a major city hospital:

Spit to Manley Walk

Several people had suggested a certain walk to us, starting from a place known as The Spit, and walking along the shore to the suburb of Manly (most famous for its beach). It was a gorgeous walk, hugging the north side of the harbor and going through a surprising amount of national parkland for being in a city. This was a particularly nice view, where you can see sailboats, as well as the commuter ferry on the left (more on that later):

All along the path (both near the water and higher up) we saw at least five Water Dragons, catching some sun. Here's one:

Here's the view from the same spot ("Reef Beach"), looking towards Manly:

Manly itself was fairly tourist-heavy, but still cute. Google will show you pictures of the famous beach (which looks like, well, a beach). One thing we liked, though, was a sea-fed swimming pool. It was slightly elevated, but waves would crash in. It also featured a bit of art:

The recommendation of the walk came with a recommendation of taking the ferry back from Manly to the city. We were not the only people who had been given this advice, it turns out. Here are some of our fellow tourists, firing away:

Reasonably so. Here's a view with the CBD, Opera House and Bridge:

University of Sydney

For our final day, we ignored the harbour and walked around the University of Sydney and surrounding neighborhoods. The main Quad building is quite a bit bigger than Melbourne's Old Quad, and featured a purple tree:

Here's Colin in front of the building. We didn't have any good way to store our bags that day, so Colin was trying to look nonchalant:

Vegetarian Butcher

On Colin's first night in Sydney, he noticed this sign, and made a mental note to come back when they were open.

That gave us a destination for our final day. The place made their own veggie burgers and sausages. 

We're back in Melbourne now, enjoying the spring weather and the slightly slower pace. Much love to everyone up north!