To Sydney and Beyond!!!!

Sydney, Sydney, Sydney……

                                      Where should I start…….

                   Maybe not at Sydney, maybe I should with a thought….

                                      We are in deep, deep, trouble.

                                      We now understand how someone could take multiple World Cruises with basically the same itinerary. On the surface, this seems a bit crazy, but when you dig a little deeper you come to the realization that it is impossible to even scratch the surface of a particular destination in just one visit. We have all experienced this issue, but until this problem beats you over the head over and over and over again, as it has on this fifty-plus ports trip, it never really sinks in.

                                      Until Sydney.

                             We had a great time in this city. It is a good-sized city, home to a tad over five million Aussies who all drive on the wrong side of the road. Well, the Kiwi’s did too, so I guess we’re getting used to it, but riding in the top of that Hop On, Hop Off Red Bus still made us cringe every once in a while!

                             Sydney is large enough to have two loops on the bus, the Red and the Blue. We did both and found another city that embraces its past and at the same time extolls its vibrant present and future. This is readily apparent in its architecture. Again, like Auckland, the old buildings fold nicely in with the new as you will readily see in the accompanying photographs.

                             Sorry, I can’t help it! I really like buildings!

                             Anyway, our tour around town did not leave us any real time to explore anything in particular. (Hence my previous observation) The place is as clean as a whistle. Every section that we went through was well cared for, and we went through a lot of sections! Now I’m sure that there are some seedier sides of Sydney, but I will venture that they may be less seedy than another city of this size? The Economist magazine, which has been publishing for over 179 years, (and has a stellar reputation) has named this city one of the top ten most livable cities in the World!

                             This is the spot where in 1788, a bunch of British ships dumped 760 convicts and their keepers. Fast forward to today and we find that Sydney is Australia’s largest city and a prime destination for millions of travelers around the world. The harbor here is one of the finest on the planet, having over 70 bays and beaches, one of which is the renowned Bondi Beach. Bondi, loosely translated, means “Water breaking over rocks” in the original Aboriginal language.

                             Speaking of original Aborigine language, guess how the Kangaroo got its name?

                             Some European settlers were in the Outback when they saw some kangaroos. Gesturing to some Aborigines who were there with them, they asked, “What are those?”

                             The Aborigines, who spoke no English, responded with “Kang-ga-roo” which means……. “We don’t understand you.”

                             There are no Kangaroo’s in Sydney, except at the Zoo and since we had visited the Melbourne zoo a few days ago, we found no need to go there. We did visit the Sydney Opera House, but just the outside. What a marvel of design! This iconic (Yes, this place certainly deserves that moniker!) structure took fourteen years to construct.

                             I will give you the Readers Digest version of this tale.

                             The City decided in the early 1950’s that they wanted a place to hold concerts and other performing arts. They had an international competition for the design of their venue. There were over 200 designs from over 30 countries entered in the competition. It was won by a Danish architect named Jorn Utzen and was finally awarded in 1957. In 1959, construction at last was started with a completion date of 1963 announced and a budget of about $7,000,000.

                                      Oops!

                                      Ten years later and about 1,357% over budget, Queen Elizabeth II finally dedicated this building that ranks up there with the Taj Mahal, Empire State Building, and the Eiffel Tower as the most recognized buildings in the world. Part of the issue with the delays was that the construction techniques used to construct this revolutionary design needed to be “invented” along the way!

                                      It is evident that now no one cares about any of this as the Sydney Opera House ranks as one of the foremost international concert halls around and is one of the most successful venues when it comes to bringing the dollars to the bank.

                                      No ‘Oops’ there!

          This is a city that we definitely could see ourselves trying to revisit in the future. Their museums are extensive and if the Maritime Museum is indicative of how they treat the others, then a Museum Tour alone would be worthwhile. We were only able to do a “Drive-By’ at the Maritime Museum, which practically killed me, but it would have taken the entire day to do it alone, never mind trying to get a taste of the rest of the city. So…. We’ll just have to come back…. it’s the only way to get us out of trouble! 😊