Day 43.

Around 1 Kim, her grandson Sachin & I went into Sydney to have lunch. Then they came back here and I went to explore Sydney & sort out my ticket out of here.

harbour bridge

the many step up to the opera house

walking towards the botanical garden

I went and got some ice cream. Coffee & chocolate and it was exactly perfect. I walked around the Opera House, took lots of photos of it and the Harbour Bridge.

detail of of the opera house

part II

Then I went and walked around the Botanical Gardens for a little while, chatted with a few people.

pan, just chilling. and so happy.

my bench.

look how great a bird it is.

Sat and watched a wild cockatoo crack some kind of palm nut for a while and became some sort of bird magnet. I had cockatoos in all the tree around my bench, ibises we flocking towards me, some black and white type magpie was sitting next to me. I felt like Mary Poppins.

Walked back along the water to the Train Station where I realised that it was going to cost me an arm and a leg to take a train anywhere.
So off I went to find the bus station. Caught a bus that I knew was going to end up at Central Station eventually but would have missed it altogether if it wasn't for the nice old guy behind me who told me when it was.

Talked to some person at information and discovered that, of course, the long distance busses don't leave from there. He gave me directions to the long distance station and I set off, feeling good.

After about 3 minutes I realised I was completely, truly, I-don't-even-have-a-tiny-idae-where-I-am lost.
42 minutes later I somehow ended up back at the bus station, on the verge of tear and general confused. I have no earthly idea what happened or where I was.

Asked a different information booth worker for directions and ended up at the lng distance station after a easy breezy 2 minute walk.
Booked myself a ticket for tomorrow night at 10, overnight to Bryron Bay.

Eventually made it back to Circular Quay and just missed the 5.50 ferry back. I was so sure that was the last one too, which would have meant taking a bus back into the city, a train to edgecliff and then another bus to their house.
Thankfully I was wrong, I just had to wait about 35 minutes for the next ferry.

The view was outstanding, that itself was worth the wait.

I went and grabbed some sushi, which wasn't that good. And it took like, 45 minutes for 8 pieces of take-away maki sushi. Ugh.

Talked to some friends of Wad & Kim's who came over to play bridge then skipped with my family for a a while.

Ate some cookies and now I really need to pack before I go to bed.

Ward & I are doing the Sydney Bridge Climb tomorrow morning, then I don't really have a plan. Probably go and see the Annie Liebovitz show that's going on at the Contemporary Art Museum at the moment, which I want to see oh so much.