Sydney - Last day :( - Sat, 27 May

Kind of a bittersweet day -- this is our last day, but what a great one it was.

Last night's play was a thought-provoking, black comedy about death. Of course, last night I dreamed about death. I don't recall what the dream was, but it was one of those that make you remember that you've dreamed.

Our legs are REAL sore. The area of Sydney we're occupying, The Rocks, is built somewhat on the side of a hill. Everything we needed to get to was via Circular Quay, which is at the harbor at the bottom of the hill. So whenever we were through with our day's activity, we faced a long up-hill climb up angled streets, stairs cut into the rock, and around blocks of randomly-placed buildings. We managed well, but we're sore.

Before we left for the play, we booked a day-long bus trip out to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney for Saturday. The mountains are called "blue" because sunlight refracts off volatilizing eucalyptus oils from the gum trees, giving the whole area a strong blue cast. Geologically, they are very old -- about twice as old as Arizona's Grand Canyon. We took a 20-passenger coach, which was maneuverable enough to get us into some pretty tight places, which gave us some fantastic views. We took the world's steepest railway down from the top of one of the mountains and rode a gondola (cable car?) back up to the top when we were through exploring the boardwalk through the temperate rain forest.

I've mentioned that Friday we walked our asses off. Our hope was that today we'd rest by planting those self-same asses in bus seats and have them driven around the countryside oohing and aahing at beautiful scenery, yadda yadda whatever. Uhh -- didn't happen that way. Homey walked his ass off even more today than he did yesterday. Up stairs, down stairs, down trails, up trails, etc. If I didn't know that it was going to make it hurt worse, I'd say I'm looking forward to the 17 hours of immobility I face on the flights tomorrow.

Anyway, back to our day. We were booked to return to Sydney from the Blue Mountains via "River Cat" -- one of the Sydney Ferry Authority's fast ferries that serve locations up the river from Circular Quay, the city's transit hub. It gave us a great look at one of the worlds' finest harbors and a chance to bid farewell to Australia's adopted constellation, the Southern Cross (it's the one on their flag).

When we arrived back at Circular Quay, we walked around to Doyle's restaurant. Circular Quay is something of a large "U" in configuration. On the upper-right tip of the "U" lies the Sydney Opera House. Doyle's is on the other, opposite, tip. The wharves are at the bottom. We had Doyle's "famous" fish and chips, but paid for lobster & prime rib. The food was OK, the price was ridiculous, but the view was absolutely stunning.

Let me put in another recommendation for the Sydney Harbour Bed & Breakfast -- if you're coming to Sydney, you should stay here. It's deep in The Rocks, which is a great location, and the service is impeccable. We have been well cared-for while in Sydney.

I've tried to remember to include links to our favorite accomodations, suppliers, and sights on the right as well as in the text. As time goes on, after I return home, I'll complete the list. If you have a question about something we did or someplace we went, please ask. Oh yeah -- photos. I've got five CD-ROMs, one DVD-ROM, and a couple of SD cards with photos on them. I'm NOT going to post them all. Hell, I hope I can remember what they all are! I've also got four Digital Video Cassettes with video I'm going to transfer to the computer, plus two DVDs with dive videos. Needless to say, one of my projects will be to come up with some sort of multimedia presentation incorporating these elements. God help me. Several people have said that they want to see my pictures -- I'll be happy to accommodate you, but you'd better plan on spending a weekend with me if you want to see them all. I know most everyone will be interested in seeing the video of the croc eating the chickens, though.

Homey