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We entered Sydney harbor at about 5:30 am, just before sunrise. The main harbor basin is close to downtown and the sky was still a deep blue while the lights twinkled on the famous Harbour Bridge, the Opera House and the downtown area.
Today is a disembarkation/embarkation day as we end our first cruise segment, the “Grand Voyage” we are on is comprised of 4 separate segments. So we say goodbye to some new friends and hello to a whole new group.
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Sydney is the most populous city in Australia, but not the capital. Back in the 1850’s Melbourne and Sydney were both booming and highly competitive following the success of the Australian gold rush. When officials needed to determine the country’s capital city, they elected to create a new, made-up city they named “Canberra”, which they located between the two cities.
Margaret has been in bed since our day at sea yesterday with a cold, and isn’t feeling well this morning so I took the tour to Featherdale Wildlife Park by myself. Well, not exactly by myself but with a couple buses full of other Regent guests. My bus arrived about 45 minutes late and proceeded to take us on a brief tour of “The Rocks” area, one of the first settled areas and the original site of the prison.
There are many historical buildings in this area and the guide discussed several. The Sydney Harbour Bridge built in the 1930’s, which, along with the Sydney Opera House, was designed by the Danish architect Jorn Utzon and completed in 1973, are the most iconic structures in Sydney. Interestingly, Utzon never saw the completed building because of the contentious relationship that developed between the city and him over the cost and duration of the project. It was supposed to cost $4 million and take four years to complete but instead, it took $14 million and 14 years. At this point, no one would argue that it was well worth it and one of the world’s most iconic structures.
The bus ride to the wildlife sanctuary was about 45 minutes through very typical suburbia. It could have been many cities in America as we drove on a large divided highway with dense business and residential buildings. Most of the houses had thick red tile roofs and didn’t offer much in the way of interesting architecture. We exited the highway and then drove through neighborhood streets until arriving at the park.
The park was organized into different areas; each featuring different kinds of animals. Through much of the main areas small kangaroos (or they could have been wallabies) roamed about looking for food handouts. There were several types of birds, many quite tame, and koalas were visible in small trees behind low fence barriers. We entered a café area where we were served special Australian red tea, coffee, cakes and even scones with jam and lemon cream. Yummy!
One of the workers brought in a koala and showed him to us while discussing their history and challenges. We were then free to explore the park for an hour. There were more native birds, more kangaroos, more koalas, bats, a Tasmanian devil, wombats, a dingo and a crocodile. They made a couple koalas available for picture taking and petting. All in all, it is a well done park and I had a good time.
After an uneventful bus ride back I walked to the ship to find Margaret still under the weather. I grabbed a quick hamburger at the pool café and decided to head out to do more sightseeing on what had turned out to be a glorious blue sky day in Sydney.
I first went to the Circular Quay dock area, which is close to the terminal building, to catch a 2:45 pm ferry tour boat. It was just pulling out as I walked up and the guy manning the entrance wouldn’t let me jump on. No problem, I bought a ticket to their competitor’s 3:00 pm hop-on, hop-off fast ferry and, before I knew it, I was sitting outside snapping pictures as we went from stop to stop on a whirl-wind 1 hour harbor cruise. We got to see Rupert Murdoch’s Sydney home, which is a very large house on the edge of the harbor. There is a LOT of expensive real estate on the over 50 miles of coastline inside the harbor. It was truly a Richard Scary kind of day (e.g. lots of stuff going on, boats of all shapes and sizes moving in all directions) on the harbor, as, I’m sure, many days are. It was a great overview and I highly recommend the Captain Cook’s tour service.
I returned to check on Margaret and decided to go out one more time to take pictures at the Opera House and take a walk-about in the downtown area. I saw some people carrying flowers back to the ship so I got directions to the flower shop and decided to pick some up on the way back. I walked over to check out the Opera House tour, which is expansive and I’m sure a worthwhile tour, but unfortunately I didn’t have time for it so I headed toward downtown.
I had time to stroll through the botanical garden and the Government House building and then started my search for a florist. The first one I found had just closed for the day, but a woman who owns the business across the way, pointed out another one a couple blocks down. Less than 45 minutes later I had a huge bouquet under my arm, complete with fig branches, orchids, lilies and other interesting plants that were guaranteed to last at least two weeks.
Back on the ship Margaret was impressed with the flowers and improvised our wine chiller to act as a vase. It was a productive day and I’d love to come back sometime to spend more time and get to know this area better. Given that, and since Margaret missed today, we’ll have to put it back on our list!
Photography Comments:
Over 100 early risers were up on deck enjoying the arrival scene from the front of the Voyager. Each one snapping pictures with cameras of all types. I set up my tripod in an open spot and started taking pictures with the D700. The sun hadn’t come up yet and it was still dark so I used ISO 6400 and 3200, then switching to 1600 when the sun started shining. It was tough to get a sharp picture even with the tripod because the boat was vibrating quite a bit as it started slowing down coming into port. But, I got a few interesting shots. The blue colors were just brilliant!
It was fun shooting at the animal sanctuary although most of the really nice birds and the bats were in cages so I had to shoot through the thick wire lattices. I also had some focus problems when the focus switch accidentally got switched to the entire scene mode rather than spot or center average mode which turned out to be problematic for shooting koalas in trees as it would focus on a tree branch rather than the nose of the koala. But, I was enjoying interacting with all the creatures far too much to notice little things like that! Just another reminder to ALWAYS check your settings, just like a pilot about to make a flight, before starting your shoot make sure to check ISO, aperture, shutter speed, focus and exposure settings, etc. Or, just shoot on Auto and forget about it.
In my hurry to get out on my afternoon explorations I forgot to take my D700 so I had to settle for using the Canon D95 point-and-shoot and the Fuji X100. This was too bad since they were having fast scow races in the harbor and there were over 100 other sailboats out on a Wednesday afternoon. Amazing! I took a few pictures to show the general idea.
It was awe inspiring walking near the opera house but it was mid-day lighting which is brutal when shooting something that is stark white. It would be fantastic to have a few days in Sydney to watch the lighting and get to the right places at the right times to capture the exact scene you want. A fantastic city in almost all possible ways!
Trip Summary » Travel with Dale & Margaret - […] Sydney, Australia […]