Familiarity

Trip Start Nov 05, 2002
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Trip End Aug 13, 2003


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Friday, May 9, 2003

And so it was onto one of the highlights of Australia for me, Sydney. We see so much of Sydney on TV at home and I had always viewed it a destination that is so unreachable, distance wise, and as a location requiring so much effort to get to. Although I had always expected to visit at some stage in my life I though I would do so, due to the immense distance from home, by stepping off a jarring 2-day flight from Europe. I never expected to get here, as we seemed to do, by simply passing through on route to Melbourne; merely as part of trip down the Australian coast which in turn is a small part of a much larger World trip! Weird. It's really is easy to forget exactly how big the World is on such a trip like this. 6 months into our trip one could argue it took us that length of time and effort to get here to Sydney but I feel all it took to get here, a place I once viewed as the ultimate long distance location, was simply to drive from Newcastle, a few hours up the coast!

Anyway, enough bull out of me! We spent a total of 6 days in the city and had a ball. What an amazing place. It has to be up there with the best in the world. It has it all. A gorgeous harbour, world famous sights, an amazing infrastructure (just like the rest of the country) and of course lovely people. While we were there we did and saw all the usual highlights expected of tourists (The Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Bondi Beach, Manly, etc etc) and got all the necessary pictures for the album. A highlight was definitely the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. Now that was an experience! The weather for our stay in Sydney could have been better and it either rained or was overcast for most parts of most days. However on the day of the climb God must have thought he owed us one because the sky was clear, the sun was out and as a result the view from the top was as good as it could have been. Amazing. Unfortunately, due to safety concerns, we couldn't bring up our own camera but the price of the climb included a group photo at the summit which turned out well (see the photo album on this entry). Another highlight was the day we spent in Sydney Olympic park seeing all the sights and arenas that made the Olympics possible during the summer of 2000. Seeing the facilities we saw, even the basic ones, one couldn't help wondering why Ireland hasn't such facilities? Is not Ireland, the supposed tiger economy of Europe, not as prosperous a country as Australia? Then again it's a question we, or should I say I, have asked myself on numerous occasions since leaving home. And not just about sporting facilities either.

So with time pressing we must leave Sydney tomorrow. Destination? Canberra. See yaw there!

Dave
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