Left the condo at 9:30 a.m. and headed for Hyde Park and the first thing we saw was the Anzac War Memorial which was a very powerful and moving experience.

From there we walked down through the Park to the Royal Botanical Gardens. The lady at the

Wooloomooloo Gate
(a Friends of the Gardens volunteer) was surprised to see anyone on such a cool, wet day but we told her we didn’t find it cold and the rain is just a drizzle, not heavy like on Vancouver Island. What a beautiful place – I’m sure we missed quite a few areas, the trails wander and branch off constantly. We saw a

Kookaburra and a

Golden Orb-weaving spider while we were walking but the most surprising things were these:

Grey-headed Flying Foxes. There were also Sulphur-crested Cockatoos who were hopping on (and biting) an unsuspecting couple who had paused in their midst. We gave them a wide berth *g*

We walked along the seawall to Mrs. Mcquarie’s Chair and got our first sight of the Sydney Opera House.

Opera House
It really is as impressive as it looks in pictures *s*. We walked back through the park and exited beside the Opera House. Wed been walking quite a few hours by then, and the sight of the stairs leading up to the Opera House was intimidating but we made it *g*

 

Wandered back through Darling Harbour again and stopped for a coffee at Starbucks (yes Erik, I know we don’t go to Starbucks but we were having caffeine withdrawal). Just around the corner was the Chinese Gardens. It was raining again, so we decided to visit the gardens (hoping for a little shelter). They were beautiful – very serene in the midst of the city.

Once we finished at the Gardens, we actually looked at our watches and found that it was 3:30 p.m. already – don’t know where the day went. *s* We wandered back to the condo through Chinatown and John found the Minnesota-Colorado game on tv (well, a condensed version of it). At about 9:30 we were falling asleep, so we called it an evening.

Today, off to explore some of the suburbs, I think.

Temperature yesterday: 19 C with rain showers