At work, I had the opportunity to go to a conference in Sydney, Australia. While I wasn't thrilled with the timing since it meant I had to fly out the day after Thanksgiving, I was very excited to go to Australia and see Sydney. The flight was incredibly long - in fact, the round trip flight meant that I had enough travel comp time that I could take a full extra week's worth of vacation. I was nervous for flying on Black Friday, but the crowds weren't as bad as they could have been on the domestic flight, and from my connection in San Francisco, I wound up with a row of four seats all to myself. That extra space made the roughly 15 hour flight from San Francisco to Sydney much more enjoyable as I could stretch out and basically have a very narrow bed. Thankfully, I had the same situation on my return trip across the ocean. Guess late November/early December isn't a popular time for Americans and Australians to fly back and forth. Here I am stretched out for the night.
Flying across the international date line was a new experience for me and I don't think my body ever really adjusted while I was there from the time and date difference. Leaving on a Friday in Maryland, I landed on Sunday in Australia (was still Saturday back home) and had the rest of that day to get my bearings before waking up for my weeklong conference on Monday. I checked in to my hotel, aptly named "The View" where they gave me a room with a breathtaking view of Sydney Harbor and the Harbor Bridge. These were taken looking out my hotel room window.
After getting checked in to my room and freshening up from the flight, I went on a self-guided walking tour across the Harbor Bridge and then along the harbor since this was going to be my only free day. I went to the South Pylon Museum along the Harbor Bridge where guests can learn about the bridge's history (built in 1932), but more importantly, can climb to the top of the pylon to get great views of the bridge, the Sydney Opera House, and the harbor.
One of the options for tourists is to do a Bridge Climb. On the climb, you are with a group and you walk up to the top of the bridge for a very unique view and experience (different tours have different routes that can be taken). I considered trying to do this, but found it prohibitively expensive and I thought the more nominally priced museum ticket gave me better value to still get great views. Here is a tour group going up to the summit of the bridge.
Here's the landmark and iconic Sydney Opera House from the Harbor Bridge. I remember daydreaming about visiting it when I was a child learning about landmarks around the world. I was finally able to cross seeing it off my bucket list and it didn't disappoint.
I finished crossing the Harbor Bridge and admired the view looking back at it once I descended on the other side. The South Pylon where I went to the museum and climbed to the top for the view is the tower in front on the left.
I took more pictures of the Opera House from across the city side of the harbor.
That day, there was a street market set up with different tables selling a wide variety of crafts, art, and other gifts. I didn't find anything I particularly wanted to buy in terms of souvenirs, but I was getting hungry and I found a table selling various meats skewered and barbequed. I'm a fan of BBQ and wild meats, so this appealed to me. I have eaten alligator, emu, and the more "normal" meats they offered, but I had never had kangaroo before, so after assurances that it was tasty, I bought a kangaroo skewer and had a lovely lunch at a picnic table along the harbor. I felt like a real Australian eating kangaroo, though when I later was asking the hotel front desk for some restaurant recommendations and commented what I ate for lunch, the worker found the idea of eating kangaroo to be very strange. Oh well, I thought it was delicious.
I kept walking and came to the Government House, a large historic estate where the Governor of New South Wales lives and I luckily managed to get in on the last tour of the day. It was first opened in 1845 and has hosted various royal visitors over the years.
The gardens are open to the public and are beautiful.
Extending out from the Government House gardens is the Royal Botanic Garden, 74 acres of well cared for public gardens and a popular place for locals and tourists alike to wander, picnic, relax, and otherwise enjoy a beautiful day in a beautiful city. I enjoyed my walk as I continued through the gardens.
I made it to Mrs. Macquarie's Chair, a sandstone bench carved by convicts in 1811 so the Governor's wife could have a nice place to sit and admire the views of the harbor and enjoyed the view myself (though the Opera House and Harbor Bridge obviously weren't there in 1811).
I saw a flash of color go into a flower bush during my walk in the gardens. I investigated and saw this beautiful bird called a lorikeet. I chased it as it flew around until I managed to get these pictures when it landed in a tree or bush.
I then made my way back to the Opera House to see it up close. I managed to get inside (at least a few feet) before being told I needed to leave if I didn't have a ticket for whatever performance or tour. I found it more interesting from the outside anyway. It was first opened in 1972 and the architectural design is intended to emulate ship sails along the harbor.
While I struck out getting inside to explore, there happened to be a large aboriginal dance exhibition contest happening outside the Opera House so I sat down on the steps outside the Opera House to watch some of the performances. The costumes and energy were cool to see.
This group was particularly unique and interesting to me as they were all deaf. I am not sure if they felt the music or were taking cues by keeping an eye on their neighbors or else just had really good sense of timing and rhythm, but I found it impressive they stayed together during their routine as well as they did.
It started to drizzle and since I had to get back across the bridge to get to my hotel and I had gotten in several hours of walking, I left to head back to my hotel. The rain never did get terribly heavy that day (though on a later day, we got completely soaked as we crossed the bridge), but it did provide the conditions for a beautiful double rainbow across the harbor. I looked back as I was climbing up to the road to start going across the bridge and was thrilled to see the rainbow going right over the Opera House. I was the first one on the platform to pull out my camera, but as soon as other people turned around to admire the view, they saw the rainbow too and we stayed there for several minutes taking turns snapping pictures of each other.
You can see the faint upper rainbow of the double rainbow in this picture.
I walked further along the bridge to change the angle and am particularly proud of this picture with the main rainbow looking like it is coming directly out of the Opera House with the fainter double rainbow behind it.
The conference was a good experience and I got to catch up with some colleagues I hadn't seen for a while while making some new connections as well. I found it interesting and entertaining that the room we were meeting in had floor to ceiling windows with a view of the harbor, the Harbor Bridge, and the Opera House. Often people's attentions would drift from the presentation to the view and during breaks, we would all go and watch the activity in the harbor below us.
I joined colleagues one night to go to Chinatown where we found a Malaysian restaurant - I liked it well enough, but was a bigger fan of a Japanese restaurant I went to my last night.
We had the pleasure of a sunset dinner cruise in the harbor for entertainment during our conference week. I was exhausted from the jet lag and it wound up being a late night, but we had some beautiful views as the sun was setting.
After the sun set, we enjoyed looking at the city landmarks like the bridge and Opera House lit up at night.
As we were disembarking from our dinner cruise, there were fireworks going off in the distance. I think someone said Post Malone was giving a concert that night, so I assume the fireworks were for that, but it made for a pretty backdrop to the city lit up at night and I was reminded of all the times I had seen Sydney Harbor on TV lit up with fireworks as one of the first cities in the world to welcome in the New Year.
The fireworks continued as I walked across the bridge to get back to my hotel.
This was the view from my hotel at night.
And the view when I woke up in the morning.
I wandered past the Sydney Town Hall one evening as I was exploring.
All in all, Sydney is a beautiful city that's a long way away. I enjoyed being there and wouldn't mind returning with my family so they can check another continent off the list and then we could spend more time exploring other parts of Australia than I could see in my one week work trip (though honestly Australia is large and it would likely mean a few weeks and several flights to different parts if we tried to explore the country properly).
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