Sydney - Day 3 – Saturday 20 June 2009

OK - so the pictures lack captions...or a sensical order, but we'll deal with that later...we're having issues from the internet cafe. But enjoy! :)

While we woke up, optimistic and excited with our prospective plans for today, Day 3 has been a wash. Literally. It has absolutely poured most of the day, which makes traversing the city on foot quite a challenge. We enjoyed another continental breakfast, borrowed an umbrella again, and set out with a few possible plans in mind. We were happy to meander, but were hoping to go to an opal cutting wholesale place, stroll through the botanical gardens, and enjoy the weekend “market” that was set up just down the road and had lots of vendors selling tastes of wine, cheese, spices, breads, etc.

We only had one small umbrella, so we took turns using our rain jacket/getting wet while the other used the umbrella. When the rain got really heavy we stepped into a shopping centre, which turned out to be five stories, gorgeous inside, and full of Coach, Versace, Gucci, etc. But, it was lunch time and we found a nice coffee/sandwich shop and waiting the down pour out while we grabbed lunch and did some window shopping.

After that we finally made our way towards the Opal Cutters place to check out the local stone. 95% of the world’s opal is mined in Australia – so they had a good bit of the stone…only after meeting with a man who taught us about the different kinds of opals, and then the double and triple layered pieces, we discovered what price range the opals are actually in. (I had glanced in some stores on the Rocks and thought they were a tad high, but figured at the whole sale price they’d be 10 or 20% cheaper and be in price range for a nice pair of earrings). I was wrong. The black and boulder opal earrings were $3,100 aussies (although the guy said they were 50% off)…but um, $1600 aussies wasn’t exactly the budget we had in mind. The duplicate layer and triple layer ones were considerably cheaper but still several hundred. So we need to get out of Sydney and un-learn how to look for real quality opal and then maybe I’ll enjoy a pair of earrings I find elsewhere.

After that we worked our way over to the botanical gardens and enjoyed the greenery and then headed back up to Circle Quay and the Rocks to check out the market. We couldn’t find the fruit bats Daniel was looking for (or Spike, Emily)…and as it continued to rain (we also had bought a second umbrella by this point) we discovered the weekend market was also washed out.

So today was a wash – but I don’t say that with any ounce of being upset. We saw a lot of central Sydney, full of pretty Europeanesque buildings, lots of neat shopping, all surrounded by the commercial part of the city and the taller sky scrapers. We got a much better feel of the area and while we probably could have explored more of the city if we weren’t damp all over and tromping around in soaked through sneakers, we really do feel like we have checked our personal “must-do’s” off. One of our biggest must-do’s was getting acclimated so that we can really enjoy the live-aboard dive boat that we are boarding on Monday.

We’ve enjoyed the city and are going to spend this evening grabbing a meat pie for dinner (mashed potatoes, mushy peas, gravy and beef) and some more of Lord Nelson’s brew. We catch an early plane in the morning to Cairns and will spend tomorrow afternoon checking out our new town. The Spirit of Freedom will pick us up at the Fig Tree Lodge on Monday morning and we will be heading out into the Great Barrier Reef for some great diving and to celebrate our third wedding anniversary! Onward we go! :)