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Day 5: Sydney

Sydney Travel Blog › entry 8 of 50 › view all entries

1 month Down Under, where I saw so much, traveled 1000's of miles on planes, a helicopter, boats, busses and lots by foot. A wonderful experience!

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Day 5: Sydney

August 5, 2009

Our 3rd and final day in Sydney, before starting our east coast tour of Australia. We woke up around 8am, after a good nights sleep this time, and left the hotel around 9am to see more of the city. The plan was to visit Chinatown, Darling Harbour, Bondi Beach, a harbour cruise through the harbour of Sydney and then some shopping.

We walked from our hotel towards Chinatown, only to discover the stores weren't open yet. So we walked towards Darling Harbour and Cockle Bay to view the city skyline. It was again a sunny day, so ideal for photography. After taking our pictures, we walked back towards Chinatown, only to discover it's very small and pretty disappointing. So we decided to leave Chinatown behind us and walk up to Cicular Quay to take bus 333 towards Bondi Beach.

Tumbalong Park

We bought a return ticket and took the bus tot he bus. We had about 1 hour there, before we had to go back for our harbour cruise.

I expected to be a long stretched beach, going on for miles, but what I found was a pleasant side. The beach was quite small, compared as to what I had in mind and had a nice walking boulevard. The shops were not that close to the beach, luckily and the houses/apartments on both ends of the beach gave it this look of a small town actually. There were surfers active on the water, although the waves weren't too high for them, as not many surfers made an effort to ride the waves.

After an hour, we headed back to Circular Quay for a quick lunch and then get on board on one of the Captain Cook Cruise boats for our Harbour Cruise.

The cruise would more then 1 hour and we saw the Opera House, Farm Cove, Elizabeth Bay, Clarke Island, Double Bay, Shark Island, Port Jackson, Fort Denison, Kirribilli House (official Sydney residence of the Australian Prime Minister), under Harbour Bridge and docking at King Stret Wharf in Darling Harbour. The tour would eventually end at Circular Quay, but we decided to get off there, since the shops we wanted to visit, were closer.

We walked towards George Street, where I wanted to shop at the Virgin cd store. I love music and wherever I get the chance to visit a cd or record store, I will as I'm always on the lookout for new cds or rare/special editions of albums. But I was pretty disappointed when I found that there was nothing special to be found.

It's a big store, but unfortunately had nothing of interest for me. But when I walked around George Street, I found a record store, called Red Eye Records. And they had a cd of R.E.M. which was missing from my collection, the australian version of Accelerate. I already have the us version, the japanese and the 2 european versions, as well as the limited edition, the promo cd and the vinyl album, but not the australian edition.... I know I'm nuts to buy the same versions, but I'm a collector and huge fan :D

Our diner was at australia's version of McDonalds, Hungry Jacks. If you ask me, it is McDonalds/Burger King combined, just a different name. The food tastes the same and the burgers look the same. But nonetheless, the meal was nice. After the dinner we spent 1 more hour online at the I 4 U internet cafe. Back at the hotel we watched Family Guy and American Dad, before we fell asleep.

- Distance travelled: many miles by foot, bus and boat