World Cruise - Day 45 - Feb 26 - Sydney, Australia

Sydney!  Wow!

Lots of pics today.  Lots and lots and lots of pics.  Julie, you asked how we are able to include so many more pics as of Burnie.  I’m compressing the photos further.  So the pics look the same in the blog, but if you click on them, they don’t enlarge and get more detailed, they stay about the same.  As an example, a typical photo with my DSLR is about 6MB.  Compressed to the first level takes it down to about 450K and down to the second level is about 90K.  So I can include five times as many photos (about 50-60) at second level compression vs. 12-15 at first level compression.

Today is one of those days where I needed to go to second level compression on all the photos, except of course the sunrise.  We had a beautiful sunrise this morning:

So that photo was pre-sunrise.  As the ship began to turn in Sydney Harbour, I needed to go up to the 9^th deck to get the sunrise off the back of the ship.  As I went out back, everyone was taking pics to the port side of the ship.  Here is what they were looking at:

Do you see the double rainbow?  Then the sun broke the horizon, giving this beautiful sunrise pic:

As we entered Sydney Harbor, here is a pic of the North Headlands:

Here is our first view of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge:

I think I have taken over 200 photos of Sydney Opera House today, from almost every conceivable angle:

Its view keeps changing as we went by:

We decided to hold off on doing the Harbour Bridge Climb until tomorrow morning, since the weather will be better.  So this morning we set out for a closer look at Sydney Opera House.  Here is our view just outside our ship, which was docked in Circular Quay:

Krissie made a good subject to contrast her natural beauty with the man-made beauty of Sydney Opera House:

We had a clear view of our ship as we looked back from the Opera House:

This is the first up close view we had of the Opera House:

It’s interesting to see the tile geometry in the roof up close:

View of Harbour Bridge from the Opera House:

View of the Opera House up close:

Here is an interior view shot through the windows (the Opera House was not yet open when we arrived on Sunday morning):

Pic of me with Harbour Bridge in the background (yes, Krissie can take pics):

This is on the entrance side of the Opera House:

I caught this interesting pic with the angles of the Opera House and the angles of our ship in the background:

Another interior shot of the Opera House:

Viewing the Opera House from the Harbour side:

Krissie with Harbour Bridge in the background:

We then walked over to Harbour Bridge and climbed up one of the pylons to get some additional pics, including viewing some bridge walkers getting ready for their climb:

View from the top of the pylon of Harbor Bridge, looking back at the Opera House:

Looking out at the group climbing the bridge (that will be us tomorrow):

A closer up view, you can see the stairs and the guide wires (and the traffic below):

Krissie with Harbour Bridge in the background (and climbers nearing the summit on the right side of the bridge):

View back toward Darling Harbour:

This bird is common in Sydney, although I’ve forgotten the name (I want to say either isis or egret, but neither is correct)

We took a HOHO (hop on hop off) bus tour to get to see some of the sights around Sydney during the afternoon).  Queen Victoria Building:

Sydney Town Hall:

We got off at Hyde Park and saw this wedding party crossing the intersection coming toward us:

We went to the Sydney Cellar Door wine festival:

Krissie got vouchers to do wine tastings from five different vineyards (there were 90 represented):

Krissie and I got our pic taken with a vineyard backdrop:

View of another famous bridge, although I’ve forgotten the name:

St. Andrew’s Cathedral and Cook & Phillip Park on the right:

We went out to Bondi Beach, Sydney’s most popular beach:

Great beach, lots of tide pools at one end:

There was a crab caught in one of the tide pools.  I think he was dead, but he still made for an interesting pic:

View from the tide pools locking back toward Bondi Beach:

We walked all the way to the other end (and I touched the rock, the kids will understand, it’s my thing about going all the way to the end and touching the rocks at the end of the beach), then started back:

There were some police horses riding along the beach, seems like a fun job:

Bondi Beach is where surfing started in Australia.  There were quite a few surfers up today:

The guy in the orange trunks was probably up the most:

There were several girls surfing, including this one:

This guy had a paddle, which seems like the way I would like to try doing it:

Several people got up with this wave:

After we came back to downtown Sydney, we walked back to the ship through Royal Botanical Gardens.  As it was nearing sunset, the fruit bats were out in numbers:

I took a bunch of photos of the bat:

Here is a photo of a bat hanging in the tree:

There were literally hundreds of bats swarming around us:

I got a few close-ups of the bats in flight:

They would fly for awhile, then land in a particular type of tree:

Not sure what type of tree it was, but there were several of them and they all had hundreds of bats:

Here is one of the bats as it is landing:

Krissie was getting a little bit scared, said it was like Hitchcock’s The Birds, but with bats:

As we came up toward the Opera House, we spotted this wild cockatiel on a pole:

He took off as I was taking a pic:

…then landed in this fountain to get a drink:

He posed for a couple of pics:

I wonder if he was truly wild or an escaped domesticated cockatiel?

I got this close-up of it drinking from the fountain:

The botanical gardens were quite nice with a variety of plants.  That is the Conservatorium of Music in the background:

More of those birds hanging around, they are as common as crows:

They walk around eating from the ground like chickens, but they can and do fly:

There was a cool spider that I got a pic, but didn’t get too close, as Krissie reminded me of the “deadly things” episode on Discovery re: Australia including spiders:

More bats as we got near Government House.  Do you see the bats in this photo?  There are literally hundreds:

Does this help (look for the clumps):

This is even more close-up (there are at least 10 visible in this pic):

Pic of Government House:

More pics of the Opera House:

…and Harbour Bridge in the background:

On our way back to the ship, I caught this photo between two of the buildings on the harbour:

This is our view at dinner this evening on the back of the 9^th deck of the ship, eating outside at Panorama Buffet, looking left:

…and over to our right is this view:

Time for bed.  Have to wake up early for the Harbour Bridge Climb tomorrow morning.  Day #2 in Sydney.  Yes, Julie, we do have some overnights.  Sydney is our first one, then Hong Kong and Dubai.