Harbor Days

After settling into our hotel which actually sits on the Sydney Harbor, we decided to get the lay of the land.  I didn’t book a formal tour as I had no idea how we would feel after a 15 hour flight.  Little did I know that we would practically traverse the city and rack up 10,000 steps.  Armed with umbrella and rain jackets, we explored some suggested neighborhoods and ultimately ended up walking through the Botanical Gardens.  Everything in Sydney revolves around the harbor and so the backdrop is always lovely.

The weather cleared and so we enjoyed dinner on the wharf at the hotel.

On Sunday we awoke to cloudy skies so it was with trepidation that we met the driver who escorted us to the pier for our 5 hour Sydney Harbor tour.  David, the captain of our 40ft sailboat cheerily met us and one other couple and explained that he had rain gear all ready if we needed it.  Ugh...sailing in the rain and wind...just what we were hoping for...not.
Turns out the weather turned lovely and we took away sunburns on our faces.  

The young couple we shared our day with were delightful which was a really good thing since it was just the four of us facing each other and the harbor all day.  We learned a lot from them.  They are both 35 year Italian immigrants expecting their first child.  Naturally we are experts on babies now that we have 9 week old Leo, so we shared photos and antidotes.    They shared their story with us.  Felipe left Italy for London not knowing a word of English.  He found work as a dishwasher in a restaurant and slowly learned English. He is now an electrician or ‘sparky’ as the Aussies say.  With all the construction going on in Sydney including the building of numerous tunnels, he has non stop work.  His wife is a kitchen designer.  They told us there is a very large population of Italians in Australia.  In the early 1900’s Australia needed farmers and offered Italians land to move here to start farms. As more industries started developing here, the Italians sold off their farms and did very well financially.  This young couple would love to move back to Italy, especially now that they are having a baby but Felipe would never make the kind of money he is making here with non stop work.

David, our sailor, had his own story.  He was in the insurance business but always wanted a job where he could enjoy the outdoors.  He saw an ad for this boat and business and he took the leap.  After shadowing the original owner for a couple of months, he started taking tours out just 6 months ago.  The original owner had steady deals with travel businesses and referrals so David has been booked almost daily, sometimes running 2 tours a day.  He had a 2 hour tour booked after ours.
He was insightful and charming, sharing the stories of the British officers’ arrival and the convicts they brought with them all the while pointing out all the celebrity homes with their zillion dollar views.

Next, on to tour the iconic Sydney Opera House.  It is the most recognizable opera house in the world, an architectural feat with a very controversial history.  The original building estimate was $7million but ended up costing over $100million and took 14 years to construct.  Jorn Utzon, the Danish architect, was fired with a change in city politics, left Australia and never returned to see the completion of the Opera House in 1973. It is now a UNESCO site and truly is an awesome structure with the largest organ in the world and so many exceptional features, too many to mention here.

I know you are all going to ask if we did the bridge climb.  Hell no!  I get scared on the Dumbo ride at Disney.  There is no way I am going to climb and walk across that bridge.  Besides, I can’t enjoy seeing it if I’m on it!

Dom’s colleague and friend Gordon Eliot and his wife Claire picked us up for dinner and drove us to a restaurant on the other side of Sydney with, you guessed it, a water view.  The food was great;  the ambiance was great;  the company even better.