Tuesday, 11/2/93, 6:30pm
Another day wandering around downtown. We got on the Explorer again in a light rainstorm (drizzle). We got off again in Chinatown just to walk through it for the first time. It was a block long and kind of boring. From there, we caught the next bus around to the Circular Quay to take a guided ferry tour of Sydney Harbour. We ate lunch (a sausage roll of some kind) watching a juggler who couldn’t juggle, and a lady going through the trash to feed seagulls.
The tour was really fun. I never knew the harbour was so large. Some of the houses were amazing. According to our guide, prices of houses within about 1/2 mile from the South Harbour beaches run from three to twenty million dollars! The north bay gets a little more reasonable, with prices from on to five million dollars!
The tour provided a neat view of Sydney history. For instance, the USS Chicago was tied up in the harbour along with some other ships during World War II. Three Japanese mini-subs came in to sink her. One got caught in a net, and the other two actually fired torpedoes, but they glanced off the bow of the Chicago and sunk a ferry. There were many other examples and historical places throughout the area.
During the tour, the wind picked up considerably, and when we finally came back in, it was starting to get really ugly. We caught the Explorer over to the center of the Kings Cross area. It was an interesting experience, but again I’m not sure it would be a good idea to get stuck there alone after dark, although I’m sure it would definitely be interesting. We didn’t spend alot of time down there before we jumped back on the bus for the hotel. We got off the bus near home and walked to Mickey Dee’s for dinner.
At this point, the rain started coming down a little harder, with lightning in the distance. By the time we got back, it was starting to really storm, and the lightning started looking like cameras at the Superbowl. It even got worse than that for awhile, when I started writing my journal, but now it’s starting to clear up again (like sunshine…) The weather definitely moves fast down here.
One other note: I really need to figure out who Mrs. Macquerie is. Remember the Road, Point and Chair that have her name? Well, she also has a light (no, not a lamp or light bulb!). It sits on the Tasman sea, about 2Km south of the entrance to the harbour. Now I’m no expert on building houses, but it simply doesn’t make sense to me to put a light over 5Km from your chair! And it’s not even on the road to the chair, so you have to make a special trip to… Never mind. One last weird note : I never knew that you have to store some types of Opals with an open vial of water, or they disintegrate. Mother Nature being weird again…
I forgot to mention that we came home last evening and found the sliding glass door to our hotel room wide open, and an empty mini-bar bottle of vodka on the counter. Needless to say, we were very concerned.
We went through everything we had in the room, and thankfully nothing was missing. I wrote a nasty little note to the hotel management expressing our concern. We’ll see what the response is.
The storm has blown away now, and tomorrow should be a good day for the river and evening lights tour.
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