Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Return to Sydney, NSW, AU... vacation winding down...

With an approximately 3 hour (maybe more) drive a head of me and a 1 PM flight from Auckland International to make, I awoke early, grabbed a quick breakfast, loaded the car and was on the road by 7:20 am... leaving Rotorua behind but not my many memories of the sights I'd seen and the adventures I'd had. My drive to the airport was uneventful but quite nerve-wracking for the last half hour before arriving at the airport... roads around the airport are under construction and the signs weren't exactly plentiful... at one point I was about to turn around and head back because I was certain I must have taken a wrong turn OR missed a turn I should have taken. Luckily, I stayed the course and saw a sign a few seconds further that assured me I was on the right route!

With the time zones in my favor, I landed in Sydney at 2:30 PM local time and was at my hotel (the Russell, in the Rocks district of Sydney) by shortly after 4 PM whereupon I dumped my luggage and headed out to explore the neighborhood and capture a few late afternoon, early evening shots of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Sydney Opera House
Late aftenoon sunlight on the Sydney Opera House...
view of Sydney Harbour, skyline and boats
Sydney Harbour view with skyline, ferry boat and sailboat..
ALTtag
Late afternoon sunlight streams through the windows of the Pylon Lookout of the Sydney Harbour Bridge...

2 comments:

Sydneysider said...

Love your photos!

Awe-Inspiring Earth: People, Places and Things! said...

Wow, your Sydney photos transported me back 35 years when I lived in Perth and we travelled (flew) to Sydney often, about 4,000 miles away from Perth. Had I lived in Sydney, I probably would have stayed!

Back then, after five years as a permanent Australian Resident, an American had to give up our citizenship if you wanted to stay in business and keep your clients.

Very difficult choice at the time, but the right choice for me, to return to USA. Nowadays, one can have dual citizenship, but age 45 is the cutoff for a permanent residency visa. I'm waaaay past that!

I was going to visit Sydney for the Olympics, but they wouldn't give me a tourist visa since I once had a permanent residency visa that had expired. Oh well.....happy to be stateside, but did love Sydney! The Opera House was new-ish when I was there, saw a concert there. Had parking for 5 cars, public transportation was that good.