Sydney all day-Opera House, Captain Cook, and Betty’s Bridge Climb!

Well, we didn’t have to be up quite as early as the last two days, but had to be ready to leave the hotel by 7:30 a.m. For another fun-filled day!

We had a drive around Sydney seeing many historical spots as well as plants, birds and trees.  We were met at Mrs. Macquarie’s point for a group picture.

Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair

The icon, Sydney Harbor Bridge

Rita, Trafalgar tour guide, Nellie, and Rita’s husband, John

Barb, Bonnie, Marlys, and Pam

From there, we headed to Bondi Beach where sculptures were being displayed. It is a yearly event, and today was the last day. We saw MANY, but not ALL…here are a few-

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Afterwards, we went to the Sydney Opera House for a guided tour with a local specialist.  He was an excellent guide who was very animated and obviously loves his job.  We learned many interesting facts about the design, construction and cost of building this unique, iconic site.

The design was submitted in a contest by a Danish architect. His father was an architect for the navy. That is where the inspiration came from….the sails he’d grown up looking at. ( but there was NO design on how to build the inner core to support all this!)

The history of putting this opera house together was VERY interesting

Panels were put together on ground, and sections then taken up

Even the toilet paper looked like it was on display

And the “sink” was wavy architecture, too!

The door to the toilets was curved similar to a sail

We then headed to the harbor to get on the Captain Cook’s cruise around Sydney and enjoyed another delicious buffet while cruising.

 

One of the ladies on our tour had purchased a ticket to climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge and had decided she couldn’t do it and asked if anyone wanted to buy it from her for half-price…and guess who did???  Yep, “Bargain Betty!”  It was totally AWESOME!  We climbed over 2200 hundred stairs, to 440 feet high.  Talk about being on a high!  Here is the video, and some pictures.

 

Then back to the hotel, where I learned Nancy had ventured out to do a little shopping….window shopping,  at the Queen Victoria Building. It is another icon in Sydney. It was beautifully decorated for Christmas.

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Neither of us was hungry (also, I was pretty tired), so we opted to stay in and have some peanut butter and crackers for our evening meal.

Until tomorrow, God bless and goodnight