The journey was long - strange getting on the plane, getting your meal, then it gets dark, then light again, and finally you get to Singapore, where you get off the plane for an hour or so - just enough time to find the BA lounge - then back on the plane for the next flight, and the process starts all over again - meal, dark, light, then finally you land in Sydney.
Our shuttle pick-up was late - we arrived on schedule at 7 am and were through customs etc pretty quickly, but it was 8:40 am before our driver finally showed - and that was after 3 phone calls. I said it once before, but let me say it again - don't ever let me book one of these shuttles again. We'd have been far better off jumping in a taxi.
In any event, our room wasn't ready, but we managed to dump our bags at least and then we headed off for a long walk with a few stops in it. The main park in Sydney has the botanical gardens in it, and we went there for a while before returning to the park itself, where, walking through the trees, we heard these strange noises coming from above. We looked up and there were hundreds of giant bats, hanging from the trees and squawking away. Flying foxes they're often called as they swoop from tree to tree - the world's largest bat apparently:
We walked right through the huge park and down to the water's edge and round to the Opera House. From there to Circular Quay and the tourist hell of alleged aborigine natives playing didgeridoos to some kind of electronic backing. Moving on swiftly, we found a lovely little back street - Nurses' Walk - and we stumbled upon this fantastic restaurant Phillips Foote. It's in lots of little bits, with a central courtyard in the middle and different levels with balconies etc, and, at the back, the Cook House, where you pick your own steak/chicken/fish and then cook it yourself on the barbie, helping yourself to their terrific spread of salads, bread etc. Here's Jo at the BBQ:
After lunch there, we headed back to Darling Harbour to check in at our hotel. We showered, unpacked and took a short nap, then headed out for dinner to the Lord Nelson, an excellent brewpub/hotel. We had a lovely meal but the pressure had built up and there was a brief storm, so we taxi'd back to the hotel rather than risk the lightning and getting wet.
We slept well - hardly surprising - but I became aware of Jo rustling round the room at about 6 am - trying to keep quiet, but I could feel the vibrations of anxiety. "What's the matter?" - "I've lost my handbag". Groan - I stumbled up and we went through the room and then the events of the previous evening. Had she left it in the taxi? Hopefully not - OK - let's phone the pub. What a relief it was when the girl at the other end of the line proudly announced that yes, they did have a red handbag.
I showered, dressed and then we re-traced our steps to the Lord Nelson - and up to the brasserie upstairs for the first time. What a nice place - why didn't we stay there? Mental note for next trip to Sydney.
So we finally got to Adelaide, where Kelly was waiting to "greet" us - in more ways than one. She took us to our apartment in Glenelg, stopping first at Coles for some groceries. We checked in, then she headed for the "bottle-o" to stock us up with some booze.
Chris came over and joined us after work:
We had dinner at the Thai restaurant downstairs after a few drinks and then it was a fairly early night again.
Our sleep patterns are not quite normalised yet and we both woke early. Jo got up and sat on the balcony, waiting for dawn and listening to the sea, whilst a few early morning athletes went out for a row/jog/swim before they headed off to work.
This morning we walked out to the end of the pier. There's a fish measuring plaque - and, yes, it includes a couple of types of shark:
The Gummy Shark sounds kind of feckless doesn't it?
Then we walked up Jetty Road to look at the shops. Lunch was followed by another trip to the supermarket to stock up on groceries for tonight - we're eating in when Kelly and Chris get here. We spent some time on the beach and I went in to the water - it was lovely. It's windy, however, and reading books isn't the easiest so we came back to our apartment after a little while - just as well, as I'm a little burned. We hadn't been out for long and I had 2 applications of factor 30. Guess I wasn't quite ready for the sun directly above us after a Scottish winter.
Jo took a few photos of me reading on our balcony, looking out to sea this evening:
So that's it for now. Don't expect this amount of detail in any future holiday blogs - it just so happened that I had a bit of time on my hands and I'm using up the last of the day's broadband I bought yesterday.
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