April 12, A Whole Day in Sydney!

Today was a marvelous day! We actually had the opportunity to get up, go sightseeing; travel to a mall to pick up a few things, like another piece of luggage; get Patrise’s nails done; and to have lunch, walk back to our hotel, get Doug a haircut, and then to rest a few minutes. Subsequently, we went back out into the streets, to run a few more errands. It was marvelous because of the numerous activities that we undertook, yet we were still able to make it back to our room before dark. We also had plenty of energy for a change! I know that I summarized the day too quickly, so here is the moment-by-moment story with lots of photos.

We were picked up at 8:00 am this morning, by our driver, Nigel. Believe it or not, we were both up and wide awake and had time to get dressed and enjoy breakfast before he arrived. Nigel took us on a private tour of Sydney. He showed us the downtown landmarks, gorgeous parks and the plush sidewalks.

Did you know that the median price for a home in Sydney is 1.2 million dollars? We saw homes on the hills overlooking the Sydney Harbor that cost more than $5,000,000 on average and one or two that Nigel pointed out which sold for over $100 Million Australian Dollars. Who knew? Here are some photos of this part of the day.

Our tour lasted four hours and by the end of it, we both felt that we had truly experienced Sydney. We asked to be dropped off at the Town Square Mall, where we had located a nail salon and a luggage store. We spent a couple of hours in the mall and had lunch there before we left to head back. We decided to take a leisurely 16 minutes’ walk back to the hotel. On the way, Doug noticed a small barbershop and he decided to get his hair cut before we left for the cruise on Saturday. He had been reluctant to get his hair cut, but it needed it. The young woman barber did an excellent job and Doug was very pleased with the final product!

We don’t have any pictures from the walk back because both Doug’s camera and phone had died.

After the haircut, we continued our walk back to the hotel and arrived just before 4 p.m. Doug had been having some problems with his camera, the film disk was full and he could not get any of the photos to download. Patrise went online and located a camera shop near to us and we left our room and walked to George’s Cameras. This store was the type of store that professionals go to purchase and ask questions about photography. One of the representatives told us what was going on with the camera, sold us a new film disk and a device to download the photos from the camera properly to an IPAD. Doug could not wait to get back to the room to tinker with his new toy. On the way back, we stopped at a Souvenir Shop that was owned and operated by Aboriginal people and we purchased several souvenirs. You know Patrise trying to spread some money amongst the folks who generally get left out in allocations.

We acted like local folks walking around town doing errands and enjoying an afternoon without another place to go or see. Tonight we will have dinner in the restaurant in our hotel and prepare to go to the Sydney Zoo on our own tomorrow. We are looking forward to this activity. Patrise has really wanted to visit this world class zoo, after watching television shows about it for years.