At the ferry terminal a unicycling juggler played with fire.

Queen Victoria Statue – Holy Hand Grenade?

Our hotel is right in the middle of downtown. That means office workers, shopping and traffic.

Flinders’ cat named “Trim”

Ed’s friend Rick recently wrote an insightful piece about Matthew Flinders, his imprisonment and writings about his cat, Trim. Thoughts of Trim kept him sane while in captivity and it was touching to see a statue to Flinders and his work mapping the Australian coastline for the Royal Navy accompanied by a small statue of his cat.

Statue of King Neptune

Once at sea we will cross many arbitrary lines of demarcation and we absolutely expect a visit or two from King Neptune. The king is personified in a statue near the southern entrance to the botanical gardens. (Andrew: need a link here to the gardens, and general cleanup of capitalization and name in prose and picture captions).

Finch in the Sydney Botanical Gardens

This stopover in Sydney is part of a larger mission. So we don’t plan to pursue wildlife on this trip. Sure if a kangaroo hops by we’ll take a picture. In the meantime there are birds. Huge flocks of loudly squawking birds of all colors. Little birds with luminescent yellow eyes. Plain black and white birds with quite unplain and otherworldly warbling trills.

Michelle in her rose garden, Sydney Botanical Gardens

As newlyweds we visited Kensington Gardens in London and took a similar picture of Michelle sniffing a rose in that rose garden. The one in Sydney did not disappoint. Even this late in the season there were still several varieties with aromatic blooms.

Cockateel in the Sydney Botanical Gardens

These birds provided a raucous chorus to an otherwise quiet afternoon stroll north through the gardens enroute the harbor. They yelled at each other from neighboring trees. They chased each other across the compound, sometimes in pairs, sometimes singly and low, but always with power set for maximum speed. They can move. And that movement commands attention as these colorless 10 kilogram aviators pass a mere meter overhead.

Michelle and Ed at the Sydney Opera House

Truly an iconic building, we ended up approaching from the backside.

Sydney Opera House tiles

The Strand indoor shopping & food

Ed waiting for dinner with a cappuccino

Of course, Ed at the Sydney George Street Apple Store!

Looking west across Sydney from a 36th floor downtown

First Impressions

A major world city is like every other, except where it’s different. Sydney’s first impressions were:

Architecture like Honolulu
Landscaping like San Diego
Traffic like Seattle (except they drive on the opposite side)
Construction like Miami
Pedestrians like Washington D.C.
Cleanliness like Boston

We had to remind ourselves these initial impressions will later be turned around as new places seem “like Sydney”.  Time and travel provide this perspective.

The harbor here dominates everything. Everyone points to the harbor, and seafood, and the daily bustle that emanates from there. A subtle undercurrent. Asked where to find hidden gems during our brief stay the answer came back “don’t miss the harbor”. Asked where to reserve a nice table to celebrate our anniversary and again “Nick’s Seafood on Darling Harbor.” Like New York’s Central Park or The Louvre in Paris, Sydney has their harbor.

We will visit it soon.

In the meantime we’re really loving the taste of Australian Coca Cola. The flavor is similar to Cold War cokes in Europe in the late 1980s, Montréal’s canned version or “Mexican Coke”. Cokes in the USA nowadays have too much fizz and too much hint of lime. Plus using cane sugar is SO much better for the flavor. How might Australian coke taste with rum, you ask? That might require some research…

Australian Coke, half full

Darling Harbor

Darling Harbor sights & lights

In the evening we walked the few blocks past the Queen Victoria building and across the pedestrian footbridge to Darling Harbor. Accustomed to tourists, the city reminds you to “look right ->” in painted letters at every crosswalk. The harbor area is ringed with shops and restaurants for the benefit of the city’s financial workers and visitors alike. The chilly temperatures heading into the last weeks of autumn seemed to keep most people away. Workers were setting up for what looked to be an outdoor concert.

Workers setting up for a concert, Sydney, Australia

Boats come and go, a parade with no bandleader but with an underlying sense of purpose nonetheless. Commercial and private water taxis move yachtsmen back to their anchored yachts, pedestrian commuters between piers and sightseers between views.

Paddleboat in Darling Harbor, Sydney, Australia

Walking the promenade, we were treated to a chorus of birds. First the resident seagulls with a squawk more demanding than the typical eastern North American gull, and later this beautiful multi-colored specimen. He (by the plumage we think it was a he, anyway) seemed interested enough to twitter and sing as he hopped between limbs, peering back through wide and thick green leaves at our camera lens.

Multi-colored bird in Sydney, Australia

At the recommendation of locals we made reservations at Nick’s Seafood Restaurant. No appetizers here – they’re called “entrées” and full plates are “mains”. Michelle ordered tuna steak cooked medium (perfectly done over a nice lemon butter reduction) with a side salad of dark local greens. Ed had local snapper and blue eye pie, a veritable tureen brimming with both fish and scant else besides a savory brown sauce and perfectly puffed pastry.  The restaurant graciously comped us each a desert, delivered with fanfare and brightly twinkling sparkler in honour of our 14th wedding anniversary.

As dinner drew to a close we watched the passers-by. The city claims a multi-cultural populace, a claim supported by the variety of late evening walkers we saw: Asian, European and a few with Native Australian heritage.  Three friends paused to laugh and strike silly poses for each-other’s cameras. Oblivious to our gaze they enjoyed the moment thoroughly and unconsciously. A thin setting crescent moon dropped below high clouds. Although no contest for the brightly lit nightspots surrounding the harbor, it still offered a comforting visual period to an eventful first day “down under”.

Moon over Darling Harbor, Sydney Australia