Sydney–Sat
Saturday 15th February 2014. Yes you’ve guessed it, we reached Sydney, and by getting here at 5.00am the Captain managed to find a parking space right opposite the the Opera house and by the main terminal where all the ferries leave to criss-cross the bay.
We were up to watch the arrival in the dark, so that is something else ticked off our list…sailing into Sydney Harbour.
For some reason we had damp overcast weather for both days here, so that meant no photos of Sydney in the sunshine. Sorry. To try and keep dry, we walked under the bridge and around the corner to Darling Harbour, with its waterside shops, restaurants, Wild Life Sydney, Madame Tussauds and also the Australian National Maritime Museum, which was just under the Pyrmont Swing Bridge which seemed to swing backwards and forwards, open and shut, to its own rhythm, whether boats needed to pass or not.
The reason for the visit to the Maritime museum was to visit the submarine exhibit as I have never been inside one before and have always wanted to experience the feeling of what it must be like. All I can say is, whatever they paid those guys it was not enough.
Now what do you think they called the submarine, Conqueror?, Dreadnought?, Tempest?, no the Australians named their submarine …”Onslow” imagine going into port and being from the warship HMAS Onslow.
No visit to Sydney as a tourist is complete without visiting the Sydney Opera House and we went in the evening to see the Opera Carmen.
Carmen started life, as most of the best shows do, as a flop. The first night was in Paris in 1875 and was inauspicious but it quickly recovered and conquered the world and had even reached Sydney by 1879, only four years later. Meanwhile poor Bizet, died at the age of 36 three months after people had walked out of the opening performance thinking he was a failure.
As for the performance that we saw, it was hot in Seville, full of gypsies with flowing dresses and tight corsets, men riding real horses, great tunes, and a violent death from a scorned lover….what more could you want?
