Sydney Part 1 / Dec30-Jan04

Sydney is a great city surrounded by bays and beaches.  We saw only a fraction of it.  Definitely worth a return visit.

The City
The harbour is a very busy place.

View from the Royal Botanic Gardens

Town Hall is the main shopping hub

This sign (yes this sign) in Kings Cross is a designated heritage site.

Queen Victoria Building is over 110 years old and is wonderfully Victorian inside and out.

The Christmas tree is five stories high.

This clock has a little ship sailing over the oceans (blue ovals) as a second hand.

Saint Mary's Cathedral

Woolloomooloo (it's just fun to say) Harbour

Central Train Station

The Trains ran anywhere you wanted to go.  You can still see the Victorian roots in the stations and rail lines.  For some reason Australia keep their rail infrastructure while North America was building highways.

And ferries go everywhere

Beaches
Bondi, (pronounced Bond-die) crowded as usual.

Lifesaver on jetski patrolling.

Manly beach: the waves were very rough.  Swimmers were restricted to 2 narrow sections.

Everybody loves the beach

Spit to Manly Beach hike
We hiked 10km from 'The Spit' bridge to Manly passing near empty beaches, yachts, cliffs ...

 And this guy

Two ships passing in the bay

Manly

Every automated loo in Australia plays 'What the world needs now' as you ... and they even had one for your convenience along the trail.

Birds etc
'Kookaburra sitting in the old gum tree'

Australian White Ibis - silly looking bird

Cockatiel getting a drink

Flocks of cockatiels, parrots and ibis flew by in the parks. We walked over to look at a large group of weaver's nests, but they turned out to be....

flying foxes catching some rays in the park

Otherwise known as giant bats! (1 metre wingspan) We saw these guys flying over the bridge on New Year's Eve.

Newtown
We stayed in a Newtown, a short train ride from downtown.  A funky little area full of Thai resturants and fancy burgers places.

And this little number