Sunny Day in Sydney

Thursday morning we hitched a ride with Betty and Surrey to the Botanic Garden, and spent some time there while Surrey was working. In mid-morning Barre and I left to go for a long walk in the city. It was a very warm day, approx. 83 degrees, and seemed even warmer on the pavement of the streets in the city.

We decided to visit a few particular stores, and walk a huge circle that would bring us back to the train station later in the afternoon. We walked passed the Domain (a very large park) and on through Hyde Park to the business district. We visited a map store (Barre needed some topo maps of AU) and went on to the Queen Victoria Building, which has all types of stores from clothing and jewelry to small coffee shops, with delicious pastries. It is a beautiful antique building, too, with Queen Victoria's statue just outside the main entrance. Our favorite store to visit is the ABC shop (Australian Broadcasting Co), where we often have found music CD's that we could not buy in the US--especially music from Australia and England.

We left the QVB building, and walked on to Darling Harbor, an area with shopping, restaurants, IMAX theater, a maritime muesum, and other interesting places. A Cruise ship was docked nearby in the main harbor, but we could not identify its name. By this time, we were feeling the heat, and thinking about lunch. We browzed the stores first, looking at the displays, particularly tee shirts for kids (Noel's birthday in May). Our treat for the day with our lunch of fresh fruit and a delicious mango/passionfruit smoothy--something we cannot buy at home. mmm good!

Retracing our steps for a short distance, we headed on to Circular Quay. We cannot visit Sydney without visiting this harbor. We took our time on the walk and as we arrived at the quay, the first thing we spotted was the Queen Victoria docked not far from where all the ferries arrive. It is massive, and so tall that it could not dock elsewhere in the harbor, because it can not pass under the bridge. We spent a lot of time looking at it as we walked along the quay, so that we could get a full view of it. Lots of people were there to admire and photograph it.

Eventually, we walked on to catch our train back to Carlton, completing our circle, and had a relaxing ride home to Carlton. We walked back to Betty and Surrey's, with a bit of a breeze blowing, wondering how far we had walked in a day.