Sydney, Australia (Day 1)

As I mentioned in my last post earlier today, we just spent two full days in Sydney, Australia's largest city and the capital of the Australian state of New South Wales.  As you probably know, it started out as a British penal colony to which Britain's most hardened criminals were sent.  Some penal colony.  It's population now exceeds 5 million and continues to grow at a rapid rate.  What a remarkable place!  Let me start with our entrance into Sydney Harbor at about 6 a.m. this last Saturday.  There was very low natural light at that hour as the day was just dawning.  Here are photos of three of the principal icons we always see and hear about:  the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the city's remarkable skyline.  The cruise ship you see is not ours, but it occupies the berth that our ship will move to late in the afternoon.

Once we docked Janis and I boarded a bus for an excursion around Sydney.  First stop was Bondi Beach.  I was so hoping to see a beach scene full of activity, including lots of surfing, but it was not even 9 a.m. when we got there, so I think we were a little too early for all of that, even though it was shaping up to be a beautiful day.  There were lots of surfers in the water with their boards, undoubtedly waiting for the big waves, but we didn't see any.  We did enjoy the neighborhood all around Bondi.  Feels very California beach-like,  Well, I've got to post a few photos of the beach, so here goes.

      

The next stop on our tour was the Opera House.  What a phenomenal structure!  Our tour guide there was very knowledgeable and full of energy.  She ran through the whole history of the project, including engineering challenges, the extent to which it ran over budget and projected timeline, the political battles that ensued, but I'm not going to take the time to relate any of that here.  While we were not able to get inside either of the big performance halls (the grander one for symphony and the other one for opera) because of scheduled matinee performances they were preparing for, we did get to see some smaller performance spaces plus areas of the building that show the complexity of the construction, especially of the roof/sail lines.

When the excursion ended, we asked to get off in an area called "The Rocks," the oldest part of the city and now very trendy, where we walked around for a bit before I parked myself on a bench waiting for our ship to reposition from our original dock to a dock just opposite the Opera House so I could take some photographs of it during that exercise.  Janis, in the meanwhile, paid a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art located in the same area.  

    

  

  



Here are a few photos of the Viking Sun passing under the Sydney Bridge and working its way to its new berth.

Once the ship docked, Janis and I re-boarded and returned to our stateroom where we proceeded to sit on our veranda for a good hour or more as dusk approached just looking out at the Opera House and all the goings on around it.  

Some  of our fellow passengers attended a production of Carmen.  We, on the other hand, eventually went to the ship's cafe where we had dinner on the outside deck and took in these night views all around us. 

After dinner we attended a performance on the open pool deck of aboriginal music and dance by a group called the Descendance and then called it a day knowing that we had a second full day in Sydney to look forward to.

Within the next few days I'll do a separate post on our second day in Sydney.  As for now, good night.