Sydney (for Feb. 12)

We weren’t sure what we should do today, so, by the time we made some decisions and got out the door, it was after 10:30. We first stopped at the ANZAC War Memorial in a park near our hotel. It is not just a cenotaph, but a substantial building, with a two story viewing hall of a large monument, a small museum, and offices for some veteran’s affairs groups.


We then walked to the Chinese Garden, a gift from Guangdong province to New South Wales as a symbol of friendship, arriving at 11:30. It is a little piece of tranquil paradise in the heart of the city. It is so carefully thought out with winding paths through the plantings. At every corner you are greeted with a new view, often of the same elements, but from a different perspective. They explain it all with a bunch of hooey about yin and yang and the symbolism of every rock, plant, and pool. I don’t buy all that mumbo jumbo, but they sure know how to lay out an attractive landscape.

I dragged Celeste out kicking and screaming after an hour and a half. She would have gladly stayed all day getting ideas for me to implement in our yard at home.

We grabbed some lunch, and then wandered over to Paddy’s Market, a four days a week market similar to the Victoria Market in Melbourne, by 2 PM. Once again, virtually every consumer product under the sun was available. Their food section was much smaller than Melbourne though. Celeste needed some new sun glasses, but, by the time we checked out the whole place for t-shirts, we had spent an hour. We then made our way to the Maritime Museum again, as they had an exhibit on Vikings we wanted to check out. We were there from 3:30 to closing time at 5, enough time for landlubbers in a ship museum, but we could have easily spent much longer if we had wanted to.

After the museum, we parked ourselves on a bench at Darling Harbour, rested our weary feet, and watched the world go by. Well rested, we next wandered over to the casino to see if it was any bigger than Casino Regina. It was. Who would have guessed it? Maybe 10 times as big – just like Vegas. After a quick walkthrough, we tried to squeeze in a harbour cruise, but we were too late for the last one of the day. Maybe another day.


We thought our day was done as we headed back toward our hotel with a slight detour to check out some downtown walking streets. I took some pictures of some of the many pre 1900 buildings that are so full of character, but, in most cases, there was either stuff in the way or you couldn’t get back far enough to get a good picture. Only a few blocks from home, we decided to squeeze in a few minutes at the Royal Botanic Garden before it closed at 8. Thus began a whole new series of scintillating adventures.


First, we were just in time to witness the hordes of bats come to life for the evening. It was like those old movies of World War I dogfights. They were joined by the raucous squawking of some white cockatoos (I think that is what they are.). Then, we stumbled upon an outdoor film festival. They have a fold down movie screen mounted in the water that they open up to show the movie and what looked like permanent seats on the shore. We weren’t interested in the movie and we were too tired to stay anyway. It was still light when we came upon it, so we continued our walk to the scenic lookout at the end of the point and returned later for a picture with the screen open. From there, we dragged ourselves back after 9. After culling and renaming pictures (only 84 today), composing the blog, getting ready for bed, and watching the end of a movie that Celeste had on TV, it was finally lights out at midnight.