Welcome To Sydney
Nothing tastes better than a Maccas when your tired and jet lagged and lugging Kgs of luggage around. Fast food breakfast. Disorientated we stepped out of the airport and into the sun ridden streets of Sydney. It hadn’t sank in at this point that we had finally arrived on the other side of the world.
We were heading out to Manly beach so we jumped on a train and headed for Circular Quay. A train system for me Id say is often the first impression of any city rarely do you land right where you need to be, Airports are often located miles from the city center and often in the a sea of warehouses and industrial estates. The best and fastest way to head anywhere is to jump on a train. So the train system will often be a first impression a portal to your true destination and in the most subtle way can lift my spirits or drop it slightly. This train had a double decker carriage suddenly I’m in awe don’t ask me why but things like that excite me so I was sold.
Station after station passed in and out of tunnels and light, me and Kate spoke of where we are staying strategies about sleeping, drinking, eating anything we could have (but god knows why we hadn’t) discussed in the hours of flights we had just done. One more tunnel passed shutting the natural light out for about 15 seconds, as we emerged my jaw dropped, from behind Kate through the Perspex window glowing in the radiant sun was the Sydney landscape. Recognisable from the many school text books, postcards, TV shows, News bulletins, travel mags emerged it’s defining feature that connects each end of the harbour the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
I stopped listening to Kate and pointed we both stared, I forgot how tired I was and how long we had travelled and took in this moment…..I was in Australia not only that I was in Sydney my years of dreaming had become the most amazing reality.
We stepped off the train at Circular Quay it was busy but not the rat race of London, we stumbled around squinting in the light for an idea of where we go from here. One thing you have to give credit for is the Ozzies are a helpful bunch, pointing us in the right direction of the distinct green and yellow ferry we were on route for destination Manly.
For anyone who may want to save a dollar or 2 forget paying out for a tour of the Harbour get a front row seat on the public transport you will achieve the most amazing views.
We watched the Harbour Bridge slip away as we turned a corner the great shape of the Sydney Opera House came beautifully into view, we had another moment of awe. Just like the many Asian tourists surrounding us we took photo after photo. Like most people nowadays we wanted a really great Facebook profile picture so smiling and several attempts we got ourselves a great selfie.
We sailed on taking in the all we could of the harbour. The next 30 mins passed quickly and we sailed in to the beautifully sunny Manly beach next mission to find our hostel
Jack and Kate in Oz 