Well - we are fortunate enough to be staying within walking distance of Sydney Harbor.
We started off at the free National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbor on our first morning in Sydney. It is an excellent museum. We took the general tour. Our tour guide was really interesting because it turns out he came to Austrailia when he was 6 years old as an orphan. They sent several orphans to Australia from England during WWII. The Suez Canal was blocked so they had to take a ship to Canada and then a train all the way across the country to Vancouver. The ship they were supposed to take from there had been bombed in the war so they had to wait in Vancouver for a month before boarding a different ship. They stopped in Hawaii, but because they had 20 children listed on one passport they weren't allowed to leave the ship until the authorities got in touch with Washington. By then, it was too late so they sailed on to Fiji. In Fiji our tour guide saw bananas, pineapples and coconuts for the first time. The people there were really warm and friendly and he has really fond memories of Fiji. Next, they sailed to Auckland and then on to Eastern Australia. I think he had a tough time growing up without a family, but things seemed to have worked out and he has a lovely grandaughter at the moment.
Next, we visited the Aquarium (see the previous blog entry) and finally we walked over to Circular Quay for coffee and a walk around. Later, we met Andy at the Lord Nelson pub in 'The Rocks', the site of Sydney's first European settlement. It used to be a real unsavoury area as sailors, whalers and scoundrels drank and brawled in and around the pubs. It has cleaned up nicely and there are some really interesting buildings, shops, restaurants and pubs in the area now.
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