Tag Archives: Opera House

Sydney Sites (Sydney Day 1)

This week my friends and I went on a tour through Sydney, with the highlight being the Pride Mardi Gras celebration! It was a wonderful weekend filled with incredible sites and experiences, and definitely worth the trip. We started out by taking an overnight bus to Sydney Thursday evening, taking about 12 hours to get to the city. The bus ride didn’t seem too long, but it was a bit weird arriving early morning and jumping right into the day!

Downtown Walking Tour

After arriving to Sydney early morning, we checked into Maze Backpackers Hostel, which was my first time staying at a hostel! It wasn’t the most glamorous accommodation, but considering we were pretty much only there to sleep, it worked well for the purposes of our trip. We all freshened up and headed out on a walking tour through the downtown area.

Our first stop was at Hyde Park War Memorial, which is an Anzac memorial in Hyde Park South. This building commemorates all Australians who served in the war, and is the principle State War Memorial in New South Wales. Built in 1934, the structure has been preserved very well, and is still in great condition today. Our next stop was the Hyde Park Archibald Fountain. This gift was built in 1932 for the City of Sydney in J.F. Archibald’s will. The fountain was created by Francois Sicard, and commemorates the relationship between Australia and France in World War One. We next visited St. Mary’s Cathedral, which stands just across the road from the Archibald Fountain. This English-style gothic church represents spiritual origins of the Catholic Church in Australia, and was built by William Wilkinson Wardell from local yellow-block sandstone just like the city is built on. The inside of the building is just as picturesque as the outside, and has a very warm and inviting color scheme in addition to the detailed architecture.

Hyde Park War Memorial

Hyde Park Archibald Fountain

St. Mary’s Cathedral of Sydney

Inside of St. Mary’s Cathedral

From there we walked to and through the Royal Botanic Gardens of Sydney, 30 hectares of gardens in the middle of the city. Started in 1816, this property spans around Farm Cove at the edge of Sydney Harbour, and inhibits plants from Australia and the world.

I think my favorite area of the gardens was when it opened up to the edge of the harbor, giving a view of the water and opera house in the background. Following the pathways out of the gardens, we walked to the iconic Opera House, where I was ecstatic to see this beautiful work of art in person!

The opera house is known as Australia’s most recognizable building, and took 16 years to build (1957-1973). A master of modern architectural design, engineering, and construction technology, it truly is an impressive work of art. We spent about an hour walking around the property, taking in the sites of Darling Harbour, and enjoying lunch on the water at Searock Grill.

The last stop on our sites walking tour was the Sydney Harbour Bridge, where we climbed the first pylon to see a spectacular view of Sydney. After walking out to the center of the bridge, we climbed 200 stairs to the Pylon lookout, 87 meters above sea level. This iconic bridge initiated construction in 1922, and opened in 1932. Even though we were not on the very top pylon of the bridge, it was still a spectacular view of the surrounding area!

Royal Botanic Gardens of Sydney

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Harbour Bridge

View from Sydney Harbour Bridge first pylon lookout

At the conclusion of our walking tour, we headed back to the area near our hostel. We made a brief stop at Patty’s, a market center in Chinatown, to pick up a few last-minute costume additions for our Mardi Gras outfits, then headed back to the hostel to get ready for the evening.

Darling Harbour Sunset Cruise

In the evening we walked back down to the Darling Harbour area, and along the way passed many people and decorations present for the weekend’s celebration. Seeing all the pride colors was heart-warming and very festive! Walking through the harbour area at nighttime was very pretty as well, with all the lights and evening bustle around the waterfront. We soon boarded a dinner cruise boat for the evening, and spent the night on the water. It was a lovely evening with friends, food, and beautiful skyline views of the city at night. After a few hours on the water, we docked and headed on a party bus to Side Bar, a local bar that was included with our tour package. We returned to the hostel after exploring Sydney nightlife for a little while, and got ready for our next day of adventures!

View of Sydney Harbour on the dinner cruise

Sydney // Beginnings

I departed Perth at 10:55 AM Thursday Morning on Jetstar Airlines. The ride there was smooth and I arrived in Sydney at 5:10 PM, a 4 hour flight, there’s a 2 hour time change between Perth and Sydney. From there I was able to board a train into the center of Sydney. We stayed with a friend who lived on the northern harbor in Sydney. We arrived at the apartment, and looked at the view, from the front window we were able to see the harbor bridge and opera bridge. The apartment is so close to the city it is only about a 30 minute walk over the harbor bridge to city. We were very lucky, Sydney had a light show in the evening, called VIVID. This light show, lit up different places throughout Sydney, including the famous Opera House.

Location: Sydney, Australia

Sydney

We flew from Melbourne to Sydney with Tiger Airways which was extremely sketchy. They didn’t check any ID and had such strict weight restrictions on carry-ons that everyone was basically wearing everything they owned as they went through security. Morgan had her jeans wrapped around her waist under her sweater and I saw a girl pulling straighteners and all sorts of electronics out of her pockets when we’d gone through. Our flight was rough, and it was pouring when we got to Sydney but luckily only a short subway ride and walk to our hostel. We managed to do a turnaround from soaked and with plane hair, to ready to go out in about an hour which is a record. The hostel had a van that picked everyone up and took us to a bar called the Gaff. We weren’t really sure where we were even going but apparently there were coups to be had and we like free stuff. They gave us free fish and chips and 3 free drinks if we bought one drink! Love it. We texted our friend Alex, who we met in Tongariro National Park back in New Zealand and he told us to meet him and his friends out in Bondi Beach. We grabbed a cab and were out there by midnight. Great decision as it turned into one of the best nights of the trips. We started at a bar called Beach Road Hotel and then had a run in with the “fun police”. It’s ok, that’s what they called themselves and tried to get all of us into one cab when clearly that is illegal. We eventually ended up at a bar called the Sugar Mill in The Cross and danced until 4:30am.

Morgan, Me, Alex and Meg^

Putting on our “serious police faces” for the fun police ^

On leaving, Morgan kept insisting that we walk home and “explore the city” which was hilarious in the morning seeing as we had no idea where we were. We eventually took a cab back and were so excited to sleep. However, when we got back to out 36(!) person room in the hostel, it was deserted. Something wasn’t right. After talking to reception, we found out that someone had fire extiquished the entire room, leaving a thick layer of disgusting foamy, powdery stuff. They told us to “find the beds with the least crap on them” which wasn’t want we wanted to hear at 5:30am. They moved Meg eventually but I was so tired I didn’t want to move all my stuff so I just slept in a fire extinguishy bed. I haven’t died yet so it probably wasn’t too toxic.

Outside our hostel, wish we’d actually been able to experience the Church dorm ^

The next day we got up and went to explore SYDNEY!! We got amazing smoothies and walked to the harbor to see the bridge and the opera house before getting on the ferry to Manley.

Manley was so pretty with tons of little shops and a really beautiful surf beach at the end of town. We stayed on the beach for a while with our feet in the water before heading back to the city.

Manley ^

We decided not to really go out that night and instead went for a delicious Malaysian meal in Darling harbor. Sydney felt surprisingly American and I kept forgetting I was in Australia and thought it could have been San Francisco or maybe a (much nicer) Baltimore inner harbor. Meg and Morgan went back to the hostel after dinner but I really wanted to see the opera house lit up so I trekked back to the harbor. An opera was just letting out and it was nice to just stroll around the steps and look at city lights.

Out to dinner ^

We didn’t have much time the next morning since our overnight train to Byron Bay left at 4pm, but we really wanted to get out to Bondi again and actually see the beach. After a bus ride and a super long walk we made it with a picnic with us, and headed down to the cliffs overlooking the beach to eat. It was so warm and everyone was out surfing and sunbathing and generally living up to the Aussie stereotype.

Bondi beach ^

The rest of the day consisted of getting on our train and beginning the 13 or so hour overnight trip up the coast to Byron Bay, again we didn’t realize how big Australia is… Once I fell asleep the train ride wasn’t too bad, except for when we switched to a coach at 4am for the last two hours. We arrived, exhausted, in a pretty empty Byron Bay around 6am and found a coffee shop to sit in for a while. I was super tired and drained my coffee in about 60 second and proceeded to eat the sugar packets. I think that woke me up a bit.

Sugar is goooood ^

Summary: Sydney is baller.