Thursday March 10, 2016 – Arrive at 5 AM in Sydney Harbour – Wow – what an amazing experience – WOW!!!! Even though the two main iconic structures – The Opera House and Harbour Bridge – were not lit up, we could easily gather their structure and presence in the pre-dawn, from the spill of the lights in the City Buildings in general. By 6:15 AM and for the next half hour or so, the view of sunrise over Sydney harbour was absolutely magical. The light reflected off the roof of the Opera House brought “goose bumps” as well as seeing the Sydney Harbour Bridge (the coathanger to locals & completed in 1932) come to life and light. We parked the ship aft into the City right between the two structures, thus the Bridge was on the Port Side and the Opera Houce on the Starboard side. One of the most breathtaking experiences of harbours, up there at least from my experience, with Rio harbour from the top of Sugarloaf at dusk, Vancouver Harbour and Hong Kong Harbour from the top of Victoria Peak overlooking the Star Ferry going between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. As one friend said – The opera house seems to float in the harbour.
We took a coach tour in the morning and went to the Opera House visiting the inside on a local guided tour. I certainly learned a great deal and cleared up many of the misconceptions I had. I thought there was one building housing the Opera with concrete sail structured roofs. The reality is that it is a Performing Arts complex with three small theatres in the lower floors and two large ones directly under the iconic structured roofs, side by side. The theatre on the inner harbour side, closest to the Harbour Bridge, is the larger one that seats 2700 people and designed for Music – Symphony Orchestra etc (including a 10,500 pipe tracker action organ) and the smaller (1600 seat theatre) on the harbour entrance side, is the Opera. So even though it is a performing arts Center with, Music, Ballet, Theatre and Opera, it is known as The Opera House!!! It was designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon after winning a world wide design competition in 1957 established by the government of New South Wales (NSW). Work started in 1958 under Utzon’s direction, but was not completed until the formal opening with Queen Elizabth II in attendance on October 20, 1973. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site on June 28, 2007, being one of the few UNESCO structures to be so named during the life of the Architect. It is built on an Aboriginal Meeting place called Bennelong Point between Sydney and Farm coves and adjacent to the Central Business Area. About 1500 performances are given annually attended by about 1.2 Million people. Another aspect I found interesting was that the roof is made of millions of light yellow / cream coloured tiles that have a special coating. There is a space between the tiles and grooves left especially in the downward facing tiles. All this is designed so the roof never has to be washed. Any city grime is washed off the specially covered tiles when it rains and the run off travels through the grooves to the ground which also has grooves to carry the water away from the structure. The light reflects on the cream tiles giving different colours and mostly gives the impression of being white.
Our tour took us around various neighbourhoods including stops for pictures at the Botanical garden, Bondi Beach and after crossing the bridge, underneath. The Bridge and Opera house with our ship in between were visible from all over. The sights were amazing. Unfortunately our guide was hopeless. There was a problem with the microphone, she read (and stumbled over) notes that made no sense, telling us nothing about what we were seeing and in general was pathetic. A group of German guests were exceptionally rude and got in her face screaming at her, which was uncalled for and further intimidated her. However, once we got off the coach, we found the oldest pub in Sydney – Fortune of War, established in 1828 – and enjoyed a good lunch of Alligator and Kangaroo – both delicious. The Alligator tasted like a fatty chicken and the Kangaroo like a lean beef steak / Beefalo. We then wandered a bit before getting back on the ship to change for the Opera.
Even though the Opera House was a 10 minute walk from the ship, we were picked up in a coach and transported. The guide gave us more information in the 20 minute drive to the opera than we learned all morning from the other lady! It was amazing to see the transformation from empty stage when we visited earlier to complex set for “The Barber of Seville” for the evening performance. The show was well done, a modern and amusing rendition of the classic Rossini Opera with a great set. I was a little surprised by how small the stage was for Opera, but they made it work well. The orchestra pit holds 60 musicians and an amazing evening was had, jut being in the Opera House was magical.
Sydney has a population of about 5 million, the largest city in Australia and was the site of the first British Colony in the 1780’s. The deep water harbour is dotted with innumerable coves and inlets with lots of green space, beaches and great weather. It has a warm feeling of friendship and all felt that it was a great visit and would want to come back.
Friday March 11, 2016 – Today Diana and Nelson took an excursion to the Blue Mountains (so called because of the Eucalyptus oil being atomised in the air, giving the mountainous range when viewed from afar, it’s blue colour. It is 65 Km west of the city and gave the impression of the Grand Canyon type structure, but the bottom is a tropical rainforest. On the way they stopped at an animal sanctuary and petted kangaroos and koalas. Apparently it poured with rain on the very steep (50 degree) train ride down the mountain and Nelson got soaked. Diana decided to stay in the coach, keeping her dry! Meanwhile Tachy and I decided to have a day without tours and go off and explore the city. We took the local Manly Ferry from Circular Quay (the central hub of Ferry activity) to the Taronga zoo. An amazing place built in the Moseman Area with amazing views of downtown Sydney. Looking at our ship and the Opera performing arts complex from the water, it was amazing to see that the ship could be seen almost dwarfing the building that appeared siouetted, from the water, with the ship visible on the three open (not water) sides. The zoo itself has an amazing collection of Australian animals and we had the Koala experience getting up close (just the 2 of us) in their living area. We also were inside the kangaroo / wallabies and emu pen, watching them running around all around us. I learned that Koalas and Wallabies have their pouches facing down whereas kangaroos have the pouch facing up. Koalas after a gestation period of 35 days give rise to inch size babies. That crawl from the birth canal into the pouch and remain there feeding on the teets for 6 months. Another interesting difference that we learned between Wallabies are that they have pointed faces and smaller ears Vs Kangaroos that have longer ears and snub nosed faces.
Upon our respective returns to Sydney, we had dinner in different restaurants – Diana and Nelson going for Seafood and Roger & Tachy for steak and wine. We met up back on the ship and experienced the magical sail away, replete with a fireworks display in our honour and the bridge & opera house all lit up. Truly one of the most spectacular and magical experiences ever. I daren’t count, but between us we mush have close to 1,000 photos of the harbour and in particular the opera house complex and bridge.
Roger & Anne Travels 