Blitzing Sydney

Hurray, visitors from America! Donna arrived safely for some R and R downunder. Of course, so did the rain from the tail end of tropical storm Olga. So, more rain in Sydney in the last week than in the last seven years. But it's warm.

We started dodging raindrops while walking in the Royal Botanic Gardens, always a treat. The flying foxes (bats) were happily squabbling in the trees above the cafe. Nice. Donna actually managed to stay up till about 830pm, better than I do after that long flight.

The gray skies didn't diminish the impact of one of Sydney's famous icons, the Opera House. What a beautiful building it is.

Another royal treat: high tea at the Queen Victoria Building! Four pages of tea choices. We felt like royalty for sure.









Donna does love a flight seeing trip, so we took a seaplane from Rose Bay (one of Sydney's most expensive housing areas) for a 30-minute flight up the northern beaches and around the Sydney Harbour. Our fellow passengers were a lovely couple from Ireland, here for their daughter's wedding in the Hunter Valley. We dodged rain squalls.







The bridge and harbour are a sight from the air. Several large cruise ships had called in during our three days, tipping out hordes of American cruisers into the city. Sydneysiders take it all with a grain of salt.

If you know where to look, you can see our house in Newport from the air. But of course, otherwise it's not very exciting. However, you can see how close we are to the beach.





Donna and I are off for a road trip for the next 10 days, including Australian Reptile Park, a private lecture and gallery tour at the Masterpieces of Paris exhibition in Canberra, and hopefully a get together with a friend of Royce Saltzman's, whom I met while making up Rotary at the Sydney Cove club last week. Small world! Time to head for the ferry from Church Point across Pittwater for a stay at the Pittwater Hostel, reputedly one of the most lovely hostels in the YHA system. Too bad it's raining, but oh well, we're going anyway!

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