35 degrees, sunny
We got up at 3 am for our 3.45 am taxi to Christchurch Airport for our flight to Sydney at 6.35 am. At check-in we were asked for our Visas to enter Australia – news to us! Don’t panic! We were told we could try to apply on-line as we may have enough time before check-in closes, or we could pay them $75 each and they would fast track them. Just what we needed at 4.30 am! Powered up the lap top and iPad to have a go ourselves.
After a false start entering details onto a facilitators website before finding the Australian Government website, the applications went through smoothly and Visas were issued almost instantaneously. Saved ourselves £100!
Two hour flight to Sydney and we arrived at our hotel by 10.30 am – it is scorching hot and humid. After a coffee, whilst we waited for our room to be made ready, we had a quick shower and change of clothing to venture into Sydney feeling refreshed – which lasted for all of 5 minutes!
Took a train to Circular Quay which is a bustling port area where all the ferries using Sydney Harbour come in, along with massive cruise ships and thousands of tourists for the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Collected our tickets from the Opera House for this evening’s performance and dived into an air-conditioned restaurant for lunch and cool down.
The concrete and rubber mats were so hot I had to perch quickly for this photo!
After lunch we wandered round to the Botanical Gardens and Government House grounds, where John sweet-talked a lady into letting us inside to see the ballroom, which was beautiful.
Boiling hot again, so at 4 pm we went to the Opera House to cool down with a glass of bubbly for our 5 pm show, which was a one and a half hour performance of popular opera arias, so we hopefully we will recognise some of them.
On the terrace of the Opera House, wind is picking up!
The show was excellent with a very entertaining compere who explained each of the operas from which the song was taken and the singers were keen to make it a light entertainment performance too. Most of the tunes we recognised and when the two sopranos sang the ‘Flower Duet’ from the opera ‘Lakme ‘ the hairs on our arms stood on end – truly breath-taking (Google it and you’ll see what we mean!) Nessun Dorma followed that, also amazing to hear it sung live and the then finale was an audience participation of Libiamo Ne’ Lieti Calici from La Traviata (Google that one too, you’ll recognise it!) – a really memorable evening, though it hasn’t convinced us to go see a full Opera!
We were back on the streets by 7 pm so wandered around the harbour to see the Bridge close up. As we walked we saw some massive bats swooping across the water to some trees near the bridge. They looked just like the Batman Spotlight, they were huge; but nobody else was paying them any attention. Looked them up when we got home, they are Grey Headed Flying Foxes, the size of Buzzards, and there are hundreds of them roosting in the trees in Sydney.
Everywhere we’ve travelled we seem to have arrived the day after a massive community event, or have had to leave a day before, and Sydney is no exception – we have managed to time our arrival for the day after Australia Day, which is a massive festival held throughout the country with huge free events throughout the harbour area.