It was good to catch up properly on things with him, since I haven't seen him for two years. Back at the flat, he had to get ready to go to work and I got ready for my day in Sydney.
My first full day in Australia should be used for exploration of the City.
I got my Opal Card, charged it with 20 $ and took the light rail into town. While on the train, the fish market drew my attention and I thought I should have a look. This large hall had plenty of stalls with fresh fish, octopus and any sort of strange sea animals.
As usual I had no real plan of what to visit, so I just followed the coast line (using my fabulous MapsWithMe App) and was not disappointed. After a couple of minutes walk through the fishing harbour area the Harbour Bridge came into view.
Many places are done up really nice (similar to the media harbour in Duesseldorf) with luxury cafe shops (which I all had to pass) and apartments.
Walking now through Darling Harbour again I crossed the Prymont Bridge into Sydney's Central Business District, where I wiggled my way through to the waterfront of Sydney Cove, from where I had a great view to the world famous Sydney Opera House.
I got an Ice Cream for 4 $ and went around this masterpiece of architecture and took many, many pictures.
The two "must sees" done, I then had a nice stroll through the neighbouring Royal Botanical Gardens.
Then I found a little Food stall which looked like it could be famous. "Harry's Cafe de Wheels" sells Pies and Hot Dogs and I had one of the latter.
Since I wanted to get a few more trips on my Opal Card in order to enjoy a free ferry ride at some point I decided to go to the next rail station and take a train and a Bus to Bondi Beach.
Bondi Beach is a large Cove on the east of the city facing Pacific Ocean. This gives it some good surf and draws plenty of surfers and other cool people to this place.
Also the sun had decided to shine and the clouds had vanished. It was a great scene and somehow I had the urge to go swimming. Only problem was, that I didn't bring any swimming pants, so I thought I'll have to come back some other day. A trip to Sydney is not complete with out a swim at Bondi Beach.
Walking along the beach, watching the surfers I spotted a little van that rented out surfboards. I was tempted and when I saw they also had lockers, I decided to go for it. Locked my stuff away and get a board.
There were great waves but I couldn't work it out properly. I had a beginners board and the time I could get on the board was halfway for only a few seconds.
I need more practice. Hopefully there will be another chance in the next couple of weeks out here.
I got back to the beach about an hour later and was happy to be wearing my pants that dry quickly.
Now I was pretty hungry so I checked Trip Advisor for some cheap Indian ( I had a strong craving for Indian food for some reason). I found a place called "Maya Masala" with great reviews which was in Surry Hills ( a trendy neighbourhood that needed to be checked out anyway).
The bus brought me nearly there and after I little more walking through the area I built up a proper appetite for which the food was not quite enough.
It was enough for this day though I and I decided to go back to the train station and take a tram back to Leichhardt and Karsten's and Lulu's flat.
Karsten wasn't home yet so I had to live through a couple of more hard hours of staying awake before he came back.
We had a nice couple of beers and a bit of a chat and I had no problem to fall asleep after this first, long day in Sydney (it turns out I walked over 20 km).
No comments:
Post a Comment