This is the third, and final, batch of images from last week's trip to Sydney, showing our final full day, Wednesday. plus the Thursday where we spent until around 2pm gallivanting around the city!
Firstly, a quick map to show the scope of our various travels, all undertaken using the simple and effective public transport system.
We started Wednesday on a ferry again, this time heading out to Watsons bay - I don't have any images from there however, just a couple of the journey
Back at Circular Quay, we decided to take a train - but where too? After a scan of the destination boards and scheduled departures, my wife decided we would go to Parramatta, for no better reason than she had "heard of it"!
All we did in Parramatta was spend a couple of hours in a massive shopping mall, so no pics of that - the good news is, my wife did get a new handbag! Saw some very familiar station names along the route, such as Lewisham., Croydon and Clyde!
Upon returning, Ruth decided she would go off on her own for a bit, so I took the opportunity to head over to Hyde Park (yes, they have one of those, too!) and visit the Anzac Memorial. I had expected to only be half an hour or so, as I thought it was just an imposing structure to take some pics of, but turned out they have a small museum inside, so I took a look around that too, as well as multiple images from the outside!
A diorama of the Western Front during WWI was the only "toy soldier" item on display
Some amazing personal stories, such as the one above
The Eternal Flame
I continued my walk through the rest of Hyde Park and came across a statue of a familiar figure in this part of the world. As an added bonus, he did not seem to have been defaced recently!
An impressive fountain at the far end of Hyde Park
St Marys catholic Cathedral
An unidentified (by me) piece of aged ordnance in Hyde Park, opposite the cathedral.
Dinner at Darling Harbour - this is what a $30 burger looks like - tasted pretty good, too!
Our final day, we took the ferry (again) and headed up north to Manly
Back at Circular Quay, we caught the tram for the last time back to our hotel and were collected there an hour later by another Uber driver, and dropped back to the airport
We departed Sydney around 1830 local time and landed back in Auckland around 2330 (2130 in Sydney), cleared immigration and customs within half an hour, and despite two diversions on the motorway on the way home caused by overnight roadworks, were home around 0100 Friday morning. I had sensibly taken the Friday off work too, so had three more days to chill before the dreaded return to work on Monday this week (although I did do 4-5 hours "working from home" on Friday to clear the backlog of emails.
So, no more holiday snaps for a while - it will be back to toy soldiers in my next post! Thanks for all the supportive comments for my travelogue so far - hopefully this last post is not a "bridge too far"!
The War Memorial and display inside was a nice find for sure Keith. You certainly got you money's worth on this trip as it looked like you packed loads in:).
ReplyDeleteHi Steve - strangely, I just found your comment in spam, despite that fact I am CERTAIN I have checked the spam folder a couple of times over the last few days, and it was not there when I did!
DeleteAnyway, thanks for your comment and yes, the Anzac memorial was well worth a visit (I could probably have stayed longer, to be honest) and we did get around quite a bit - a very enjoyable mini break!
The museum in Hyde Park was a great find. A great trip all round
ReplyDeleteThanks Scotty, I was pleased I got to spend a short while there.
DeleteMore interesting photos, very interesting the Hyde Park museum, good stuff!
ReplyDeleteThanks Donnie, I found the museum interesting too.
DeleteAs always you continue to have some wonderful trips away….
ReplyDeleteThe statues in The Hyde Park /ANZAC museum are particularly good…
All the best. Aly
Cheers Aly, I was happily surprised by how many historic buildings etc still exist in the Sydney CBD, alongside the more recent additions....it's quite a nice mix.
DeleteBeautiful photos, but looking at such a big burger made me hungry :))
ReplyDeleteHaha....I certainly was no longer hungry after eating it Michal!
DeleteVery much to take in. I'm envious of your holiday excursions! On a side note, the US WWI Memorial here in the US was under appreciated and overlooked until a few years ago, when it was restored and turned into a site of both remembrance and active venue for research and conferences. Good to see that these sites still have room among the many misdirected priorities of the current age.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ed. Anzac (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) related memorials etc are a very big deal here...the Gallipoli campaign and Anzac Day are almost a fusion of both Veterans Day and Independence Day in the US...Gallipoli is something of a foundation point in both nations history, a point where they "came of age" and cut the apron strings connecting them to "the mother country"...it's kind of hard to explain...there is certainly nothing similar in the UK.
DeleteThat all looks great, although you probably could have done without the trip out to Parramatta. I used to have to go out there for business a fair bit in the 80's and never really enjoyed it that much, unless it was for a day at Rosehill races.
ReplyDeleteCheers Lawrence...I would not have missed a trip to Westfield Parramatta....but I didn't really mind it, either!
DeleteGreat set of photos Keith. I am glad you had a good time in Sydney with your wife.
ReplyDeleteYou are being very polite about the city though. 😁 We all see it as noisy and dirty. 😂
I used to go past Captain Cook's statue fairly regularly in the 70's. He was usually holding an old style garbage bin in his outstretched hand becoming a statue for the garbos of that era. 😂
Ah well, you always think your own home town has lots of issues Ben....we thought it was pretty good but after two visits, that might be enough...never been to Adelaide or Melbourne, so if we do another Aussie break in the future., we might give one of those a try!
DeleteMelbourne is definitely worth a visit. Much flatter than Sydney and properly planned with good transport. Unlike Sydney which was "lets dump a whole lot of convicts here and see what happens" 😂
DeleteNever been to Adelaide but have heard very nice things about it.
Haha....sounds like you're not much of a fan of Sydney, Ben!
DeleteNice wrap up. The memorial seemed very nice.
ReplyDeleteThanks Stew....I was impressed with the solemnity of the Anzac Memorial
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