Sydney Cove is the portion of the harbor located directly north of the Central Business District. It is bookended by promontories topped by Sydney's two best-known landmarks, the Sydney Harbour Bridge to the west and the Sydney Opera House to the east. At the base of the cove is Circular Quay, which is a transportation center for buses, trains and ferries. For good measure, an expressway runs above the roof of the train station on its way to the Harbour Bridge. The Circular Quay area is also the site of the original landing of the First Fleet in 1788.

To have a look around Sydney Cove, we took the subway from our hotel to Circular Quay and first headed toward Dawes Point, the south end of the Harbour Bridge. On our way there, we passed through an area called The Rocks, which has many structures of historical interest.

The Harbour Bridge was built from 1923-1932 and carries auto, rail and pedestrian traffic across the Harbour. The locals enjoy encrusting it with colorful explosives and detonating them each New Year's Eve. So far the Bridge has been able to survive these assaults. We got a good close-up view of the bridge from underneath, and it's quite massive.


Dawes Point is also a nice place from which to view the Opera House across the Cove.



After breakfasting at a place called Pancakes on The Rocks, we retraced our steps toward Circular Quay and rounded the Cove in order to get a closer view of the Opera House.



The Sydney Opera House is situated on Bennelong Point, and was built from 1958-1973, the groundbreaking work of Danish architect Jørn Utzon. There was much controversy and bad blood between Utzon and the local government during the construction, resulting in his resignation prior to its completion, and when it was opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1973, Utzon was not invited to the ceremony, at which he was not mentioned. There was something of a reconciliation starting in the late 1990's, and some internal reconstruction was done according to Utzon's design before his death in late 2008. In the meantime, the Opera House has become one of the most instantly recognizable structures in the world, and is the first thing many people visualize when they think of Australia.


In addition to hosting the Opera House, Bennelong Point is a good place from which to observe the Harbour Bridge.


But in the opposite direction is the next Cove over, called Farm Cove.

Surrounding most of Farm Cove are the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain. This is a large, well-landscaped park with a beautiful view of the Sydney skyline. The Gardens are no doubt a popular place for some of the Sydney office workers to pass their lunch hours.




We wandered around in the Gardens for awhile and stumbled across the Tropical Centre, a greenhouse full of colorful tropical plants.








We spent some time in the Centre, and then discovered ourselves to be closer than expected to our hotel. We headed back in that direction, stopping for lunch and some last-minute shopping on the way.

We returned to the hotel and rested for awhile. During our rest, it became increasingly apparent that it was time to go home. Though we'd only scratched a very small part of the surface of Australia and would gladly have extended our visit substantially, real world concerns were forcing us to behave like responsible adults and return to the commitments and routines from which we'd come. In truth, we were looking forward to seeing our friends and family again, just as they no doubt missed us ("Oh? Were you gone?"). Before departing, though, we took a last stroll around Hyde Park and the downtown area immediately adjacent.



The morning of departure, the same shuttle that had brought us to the hotel from the airport came to pick us up (we'd pre-paid for the round trip) and dumped us off at the Sydney Airport International Terminal.

We e-mailed our son Philip in the States (there was a free kiosk in the terminal) to remind him he'd have to come get us at the airport back in Los Angeles, and we boarded our QANTAS flight back to LAX.

The flight was of the lengthy overnight variety, but by a quirk of the International Dateline, we landed a few hours before we took off.

After we got through Customs and Immigration, we were picked up by Philip as arranged and returned to Orange County, where the remnants of Summer Vacation awaited Connie and Nella and I had a joyful return to The Salt Mines to look forward to.

So would we visit Australia and/or New Zealand again? Without hesitation. In New Zealand, we wouldn't mind repeating some experiences, and we'd like to visit places like the South Island and that long skinny peninsula north of Auckland. In Australia we'd like to revisit a few places like Melbourne, Northern Queensland and Uluru, and see some (to us) new places like Tasmania, Adelaide, the West and Northern Coasts, etc., etc. (it is an entire continent). In the meantime we can say we survived the dangers of Australia (snakes, crocodiles, sharks, absurdly venomous spiders and jellyfish – even the goofy platypus is venomous) and New Zealand (stinky vulcanism, blood-thirsty Maoris, interminable sheep), and we have lots of pictures to show people. Hopefully you've found some of them interesting, and they've either jogged some memories of your own or encouraged you to think about going Down Under yourself. So enjoy whatever travelling you end up doing, and if you bump into us, say Hi.