Still in Sydney!

Well, we thought we were at our last day in Sydney, but then things happened.

As we went to the airport I joked to Mary that we should volunteer to be bumped since we have an extra day in San Francisco.  As we neared our boarding time an announcement of a 15 minute delay due to equipment issues was made.  15 minutes later, it became an indeterminate delay. The next announcement was the kicker:  "We're sorry to announce that we have to open up the plane to effect repairs and no alternate aircraft is available.  Your flight has been delayed to 12:30 p.m. tomorrow.  We will bus you to a hotel, provide supper and breakfast before busing you back to the airport.  We apologize for any inconvenience".

I cannot begin to imagine what Qantas had to do to find a hotel with 200+ available rooms and the logistics to move a fairly full 747 load of people to a hotel overnight.

So, we are now staying in Novotel Sydney, right on Darling Harbor!  Talk about a step up from the places I booked!  

So now I just need to call our place in San Francisco to cancel Sunday night since we obviously won't be needing that room.

Our last day in Sydney

Well, the Australia portion of our vacation is at an end. We had some last minute souvenir shopping to do today in Darling Harbor so we got that out of the way in the morning, then got dressed up for the Bjorn Again (ABBA Tribute band) concert at the Opera House.  The concert was good - very energetic - and we enjoyed it a lot, especially attending an event in the Opera House.

After that we took a ferry under the Sydney bridge to the north end of Darling Harbor, found a nice place for supper, then took a bus back to our hotel - and started packing. 

Earlier this week we feared we'd have to ship a package home, but it now looks like everything will fit into our 3 suitcases and we have a spare carry on bag we can use if need be.

So tomorrow is our loooooooong day (36 hours from when we get up until we see a sunset in San Francisco) so that will be a challenge.  Hopefully we can catch a few hours sleep on the plane like we did on the way to Australia.

The Blue Mountains

Today we took the bus to Central Station, then caught a train to Katoomba where we got passes on an excursion bus to see various places in the Blue Mountains.  The trails involve lots of up and down hiking and most of the once marked "easy" should be "moderate" in my book.  We didn't have any trouble with them but they involved lots of steps, rough terrain, and some very large steps.

We did walk a few trails and took a miners train ride down a 52 degree slope (felt more line 70 degrees!) and a tram back up from the bottom of the valley.  Even tho we were prepared for colder weather, we were both rather chilled as the high for the day was just 50 F.  Guess we're getting a bit spoiled.  LOL

Anyhow, we enjoyed seeing them a lot and had a nice day.

Australian Currency

This the first vacation where we've had to deal with foreign currency.  Previously on cruises, everyone took US $ so we did not have to exchange money.  Australia has very colorful currency and some unusual coinage which took some getting used to.

The coins are arranged highest to least value as you go down the picture.

• no pennies
• smallest bill is a $5
• the bills are different sizes
• no quarters: 5, 10, 20, 50 cent pieces in ascending size
• the $2 coin is smaller that the $1 coin

It just seems so weird to get any change under $5 as coins.  Mary and I keep building up lots of value in coins since the $2 coins are so small and you get lots of them.

Anyhow I thought you might enjoy seeing what the currency looks like.

I do want commend my Charles Schwab representative - he was very helpful in suggesting I open a Schwab Bank account since they have very favorable exchange fees.  I just used the debit card as a credit card for all our expenses and I could do ATM withdrawals to obtain Australian currency.  At one airport purchase they wanted to do the exchange for us, but by having them charge me in Australian$ we saved $5 on a $110 purchase. 

Thinking about home

As I woke up this morning I realized that we only have two more full days in Australia.  As they say, "all good things must come to an end"...  It's be a fabulous vacation so far and we have the Blue Mountains today and a "misc stuff "day tomorrow with the ABBA concert in the afternoon as a highlight.

So we'll be home in a few days, after spending 2 days in San Francisco to help with the time change adjustment (and because that's when I could get the free flight on NWA...) then back to the daily grind.  In some ways that will be nice, but in others....

Visiting the Opera House

This morning Mary and I toured the Sydney Opera House.  It was a very enjoyable and informative tour.  They included several videos about how the design was selected, construction issues, and current issues.  The story was quite amazing as were many of the construction details.

We did see the theater where John Denver performed (which made someone very happy), but were unable to take pictures of it since a band was rehearsing. 

On our way out Mary spotted a poster about an ABBA Concert called Bjorn Again.  She was disappointed that we could not see them in Detroit since they were appearing in June while we were in Australia.  I looked and saw they were performing on June 28th, this coming Saturday.  Since that was a somewhat open day, we bought tickets for the afternoon matinee so now we will actually attend a performance in the Opera House!  Very cool!

Bridge Climb!

Today was my bridge climb.  It was very cool and I'm glad I took the Discovery Tour instead of the traditional one.  The traditional tour walks up the top steel on one side of the bridge and back on the other side.  That's like walking up an 8' wide sidewalk.  The Discover Tour, on the other hand, has you walking on the lower catwalks below the span and you walk next to the steel and granite, close enough to touch it.  Near the top you climb ladders from the lower steel to the top as you can see in this picture. 

The climb was quite exhilarating.  While they took individual pictures, there was lots of time to just lean back against the rail and take in the view.  I'm glad the winds dies down a bit.  In morning when Mary and I were headed to the Opera House, they were around 80 km/hr (50 mph) but by the afternoon they were half that speed. 

The guide took lots of nice pictures, but their pricing was exorbitant so I just bought one of me and got a free group picture. 

So it was a wonderful thing to do once, but not something I'm likely to do again.