Sydney - Sept. 15, 2018

This was it - our last day in Australia. Mark's was a very short last day - he headed out at 6am for his flight. My luggage was back at the WeWork to make it easier for me to tour around today, so, after two hours of seeing if I’d fall back asleep, then finding Dick van Dyke’s Diagnosis Murder, then a quick shower, I was back on my way. 

I rode the train (I was getting good at navigating the stations with my Opal card) up to St. James, hopped out and walked to the WeWork, then ate breakfast (thanks APT), charged my phone, and figured out my plan.

Decided first to walk north to The Rocks on my way to the Harbor Bridge and the Pylon Lookout. 

The narrow streets of The Rocks, an area just outside of the main ferry terminal at Circular Quay, are cute as long as you are going downhill on all the staircases. I wove toward the center, found a market, and realized this was the one place that I actually needed that Australian cash. I got some things, but the ornaments were cash-only, and the nearest ATM was out of service, so I considered it a sign and kept walking. 

I ended up underneath the Harbour Bridge, thinking the Pylon Lookout would start at wharf level. Instead, you had to walk out on the pedestrian walkway on the bridge to get to it. Not too hard, but quite a steep walk back up to where the bridge started. 

The Lookout was actually a museum as well. The 1920s and 1930s, when the bridge had been built, were impressive for their ability to make huge things with the machinery and manpower they had - and with telephone lines that went up for the managers to talk back down to the workers stationed at the edges!

After photos and descriptions of feats of engineering, I climbed up to the viewing deck. Looking out over the bridge, the first thing I saw were three groups of bridge walkers! For only $150 more, I too could have climbed the steel arch of the Harbour Bridge! (I made the economical $10 choice, and, looking down, I got plenty high enough.)

I gazed across the weaving of the harbour, watching ferries and, specifically, keeping an eye on a wedding ceremony site just along the harbor. I was there at 12:25 - I stayed until 12:35, hoping to catch the ceremony starting, but by then guess it wasn’t supposed to start until 1, if not later.

Instead, I learned that white cats lived in that pylon when it was a curiosity museum! Also, the pylons weren’t needed for engineering of the bridge - they were just a pretty decoration that got incorporated into the design. 

My next stop was going through the Royal Botanic Gardens to see the harbor from sea level. It was a beautiful, sunny day (and I had put my sunscreen on!) at around 80 degrees, so it was easy to meander and listen to my podcasts. I found a rock outcropping to play in, then some birds - including a kookaburra! - and some statues and some flowers, but just taking iconic pictures of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge was keeping me happy. 

My stomach was growling, and I had happened to see a daytrip out to Watsons Bay on the ferry recommended, with a fish and chip shop right at the ferry dock. 

I spent ten of the twenty minutes before the ferry trying to figure out which of my credit cards had a PIN, or if I needed to go find an ATM or use my debit card. It got sorted (my new favorite verb), and I was aboard the ferry. 

It was a thirty minute trip, and it really showed some of the ins and outs of the bays along the harbour (since there was a stop at Rose Bay), and all the water sports people did. Kite surfing and wind sailing and sailing and yachting (is that a sport?) and kayak and stand up paddle boards - and just swimming and playing beach volleyball! I’d need to pick up at least one of those before moving here!

The tempura-fried whiting almost flew away at the first picnic bench past the lunch counter, so I moved further up the hill. I’m glad I did, not because someone awkwardly tried to make me the caretaker of a lost wallet, but instead because my plan of walking around the point went out the window when I realized the Tasmanian Sea was just over the hill. 

I walked along the cliffs, which had memorials and signs for suicide hotlines, which was sad but uplifting for those that were giving hope and ways to get help.

The ocean against the cliffs was artistic, though a sunrise there would be stunning instead of nearing sunset. I went along to the two viewpoints that were closest on the map before checking my watch - my ferry was leaving, and I had a plane to catch!

I made it onto the 4:50 boat, back to the WeWork by 5:45 to change and grab my luggage, and airport by 6:30 via the train again. (Exiting, I had $1.30 on my Opal card - nearly perfect guesstimations of train and ferry costs.)

The Hawaiian Airlines check-in was just opening, so essentially the entire flight was queued up for bag tags and passport checks. I found a restaurant that took Priority Pass, bought enough food for two meals, then continued binging on the “Up and Vanished” podcast while cross-stitching.

A layover in Honolulu (another lounge) and a flight to NYC before getting to DC. Essentially, it was two red-eyes in a row. While the long flights are a downside, they are where the majority of this blog got written - so forward-thinking of me. And that's all from the Grand Canyon + Australia 2018 30th birthday trip!