Sydney, Australia (a taster)

(Note from Liz: Mom and Dad disembarked in Sydney on Sunday and plan on meeting up with the ship again on Friday. This is from an email she sent to Ellen and me before they disembarked.)

I do not have time for my blog, but will on our return. I hope we make it on the ship in Port Douglas. Then we have 5 sea days. If not, well… that’s the adventure part I guess.

We got up at 5:30 AM to watch the approach to Sydney Harbour. It was beautiful. There had to be at least 100 boats escorting us in. To watch the sun rise on this gorgeous harbour was breathtaking.
The passengers were hanging from the sides waving the Australian Flags we were given. We had a great champagne toast and took it all in.

It was great to see Tanya and Joel yesterday (Liz's Australian friends). We went to Darling Harbour for brunch and walked around. It was a great to catch up with them and so nice Tanya was able to sneak away from work to make it happen.

Then Dad and I took the hop-on hop-off bus and enjoyed that. Did Harry’s and the view from the Chair area etc. Then back to the ship. Dad worked on the mail that had arrived while I went shopping at the Rocks and didn’t buy anything of course. I did enjoy it though. Cheryl sent the mail Feb 6 and it just arrived.

Then we took the ferry to Watson’s Bay and had a wonderful dinner at Doyle’s On the Beach. The ferry ride was great. We went into some little harbors with boat races etc. Dinner was Grilled Jumbo Pawns on the Barbie! Outstanding!

Taxi back to the Opera Bar and the Opera House. We spent about an hour and a half walking around and enjoying the evening around the Opera House. It was just magical. That is all I can say to describe it. It was an absolutely beautiful evening outside with all of the boats on the harbour etc as well as the view of the ship right across Circular Quay from the Opera House.

We went over to The Rocks and an Irish Pub from there. We walked back to the ship and fell into bed.

I am trying to deal with the mail and bills this morning. Joel will pick us up at 2 to drive to the northern beaches and then on to the airport later today to start our overland. We fly to Sandra’s in Brisbane tonight.

We are not taking the computer with us. I have tons of pictures so will blog it all in a week or so.