After our pleasant stay in Crow's Nest, we had to switch our accommodations. Because we wanted to avoid the exorbitant cost of staying in a hotel for the New Year's holiday, we found alternate accomodations at the University of Sydney dormitory - which was much less expensive. So, we checked out of our hotel in Crow's Nest, but not before taking advantage of the last day of the continental breakfast, and took the bus to Sydney Central station, or where the driver dropped us off - which was a little bit beyond the station. We used google maps on Erin's phone to navigate us to Mandelbaum House, the Jewish dormitory, at the University of Sydney. We were greeted by the housekeeper, who quickly showed us our room and left us to settle in.
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| Yes, we had separate rooms. James shows off his. |
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| Our sitting room - only Kosher food was allowed in this area. |
Once we were checked in and a bit settled, we decided to make our way into town. We wanted to check out some of the parks, including eyeing up a few potential places to watch the fireworks. The walk into town was about 20 minutes, which wasn't too bad at all. We walked to Hyde Park, which was named after the original Hyde Park in London. The park was once a venue for criket matches and horse racing, but now it is just a fantastic place to enjoy the scenery and relax. We saw several people eating lunch and sunbathing int he park.
We also walked through St. Mary's Cathedral, which is a large Catholic church in Sydney. Erin wanted to walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens, so we headed that way next. The Botanic Gardens were created in 1816 and actually include a small rainforest walk, along with plenty of gardents and birds. In the middle of the Botanic Gardens, we ran into the the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The museum was free, so of course we entered. We were actually surprised to find one of the main exhibits at the museum was of the Terra Cotta Warriors, which we had just recently visited in China.
After the museum, we decided to walk down Mrs. Macquarie's Road and explore possible sites for the fireworks. We were blown away by how phenomenal the views were. We could see the the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge perfectly. We talked about possibly trying to come back to the area early in the morning the next day to get a good spot for the fireworks. It looked like the gates would be closing in the early afternoon, so we'd have to get there early - but, the views would probably be worth it we thought.
We made one more stop on our journey: we walked up to the beautiful Opera House. We even went inside and took a look around! They were still selling tickets for the New Year's Eve opera performance and we talked about how fun it might be to actually go to it, but then we saw the ticket prices and reality sunk back in.
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| Hyde Park's sunbathers. |
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| The reflection pond inside Hyde Park. |
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| A Hyde Park walk reminiscent of NYC's Central Park. |
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| Sydney's Sydney Tower. |
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| Tabitha, her kangaroo friend, Joey, and her Tiger friend, Howard, pose for a picture in front of Archibold fountain in Hyde Park. |
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| St. Mary's Cathedral - it reminded us a bit of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. |
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| The NSW Art Gallery - Home of the Terracotta Warriors (our old friends) |
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| Downtown Sydney from Macquarie's Point. |
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| If you look closely, you can see the Luna Park (an amusement park) right to the side of the Northern end of the Harbour Bridge. |
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| A great shot of Harbour Bridge with a cruise ship passing below. |
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| The Sydney Opera House, up close and personal. |
We were exhausted by the end of our adventure. The heat in Sydney can be pretty scorching at times, and, combined with the humidity, it can really drain one's energy (not that we are complaining in any way). After we returned back to the dorm room, we made a stop at the Woolworth's grocery store on the way home and then Erin did laundry, for the first time in over 2 weeks!
