Exploring the Land Down Under: Discovering Sydney
It seems like nothing went right on our trip to Australia. Our luggage didn’t arrive for two full days. The weather in Sydney, which was supposed to be in the mid-60s, was at least ten degrees colder than that and rainy. My good friend of about 12 years (whom we last saw about 5 years ago) was out of the country on a business trip. All in all, a disaster! Except…
We had the time of our lives.
Our trip was full of fun and adventure. We spent three days in Sydney before heading up to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains then driving up to Hunter Valley, the wine country region of New South Wales. I really wish we’d had more time, because there was so much to see and explore, especially in Sydney.
Exploring Sydney on our First Day
Although we started out our vacation unprepared because of our lack of luggage, we made do with what we had and didn’t let our bad luck drag us down. On the bright side, we didn’t need to tow our luggage from the airport to our hotel! Our first morning in Sydney, we went to the mall to pick up some cheap outerwear from H&M and some cosmetics from a pharmacy. The airline that lost our luggage had given us bags with toiletries and pajamas, so we at least had a few important items to make it through our first two days.
As has become something of a tradition for us, we started our vacation with a walking tour of Sydney.
Our tour guide from Free Tours Sydney met us in Hyde Park and took us on an adventure through the Central Business District (CBD) of Sydney, through the Botanical Gardens, down to the Sydney Harbour, and up to the area known as the Rocks. The tour lasted about two and a half hours and gave us a good idea of some of the history of Sydney along with ideas of things we’d like to go back and explore later. At the start of our tour, it was a pretty sunny day, but by the time the tour ended, it had become overcast and was starting to drizzle — a good sign that we should move on to our next destination, the hotel. But not before we snapped a few photos of the Syndey Opera House. As you can see from the pictures below, the weather changed drastically in those two and a half hours! The second of these pictures was taken around 2:00 pm.
Discovering More of Sydney on Our Own
Later that day, after checking into our hotel and having lunch, we decided to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and explore a little bit more. Of course, by the time we were about halfway across the bridge, it started raining again — even though it was still mostly sunny! We waited out the rain and were rewarded with a view of a lovely rainbow over the harbor. We then wandered down to Milsons Point to look around a bit before taking the ferry back across the harbor.
That night, we walked back down to the Rocks and the Circular Quay to experience a bit of VIVID Sydney. It was sort of a lights and music festival that was taking place in the evening, and the whole Quay and part of the Rocks came to life with thousands of lights.
By the end of our first day in Sydney, we had walked a little over 11 miles and climbed the equivalent of 34 flights of stairs. Needless to say, we were exhausted! Despite the hiccups of the first day without our luggage, we had a really amazing first day. Our hotel was above a small but popular pub, so we grabbed a few pints, then made our way upstairs to rest so we could continue to explore Sydney in the morning.
