Sydney, Day 3

Sydney 2/28: Another tough night sleep, but we will power through it. Turns out we really did not time this trip well as the Australian dollar is its strongest against the US dollar as it has been in 24 years and Sydney is experiencing its coldest February in 50 years. Hopefully we exhaust our poor timing in Sydney so we can enjoy good karma the rest of our way. Anyways, we had no choice but to brave the weather and head out towards Darling Harbor to catch the Captain Cook Cruise for a ferry tour around Sydney Harbor. We bought our tickets and went looking for some food and decided on a croissant from Starbucks. As we were splitting our meal the sky opened up and started to rain cats and dogs. We hustled to the pick up point in Darling and waited under an awning as the boat pulled up. Everyone ran to the boat and boarded. The woman commentator and the young guy that would put out the boarding ramp were nice and we talked with them for a while. The boat was fogging up as we rode to the various ferry stops, we could barely see anything, but it didn’t matter much since the rain and fog obstructed the view. Luckily we saw most of the places yesterday and were primarily interested in the Watson Bay stop as that is where we saw a nice street to window shop on. We arrived at Watson and disembarked in the rain. Turns out the street we saw from the bus yesterday was two bays west and not within walking distance in the rain. So we popped into a bar and purchased some wedges (seasoned potatoes with sour cream and sweet chili sauce) and beers for lunch. It was pouring so we waited it out and when it calmed down we walked around the area and saw Gap Park where the Sydney Harbor (learned later on the ferry that the whole harbor is truly called Jackson Harbor). This area had historical military barracks to protect the harbor and also a cliff where people notoriously commit suicide. Later we caught the ferry back and weather conditions were significantly improved. It was nice enough to actually stand out in the back of the boat where it was open roof and could look up at the Harbor Bridge as we passed under it. The ride back from Watson was much better than the ride out in the morning. We disembarked the ferry at Darling point and went to Paddy’s Market (glorified swap meet) and bought two beach towels for the remaining portion of our beach stops. Walking back to the hotel the weather was acceptable, but we were a bit tired. Took a short nap and then got ready to walk to downtown. Stephanie wasn’t feeling particularly good so we stopped by a chemist (pharmacy) and the lady said she had flu symptoms and to rest and take some vitamin C. We turned around and purchased some soup at a Vietnamese restaurant. Got back and Stephanie took EmergenC and made sure the food was acceptable before Steven went to walk again (it was only 5:45pm and Stephanie was okay and prefers to be alone when not feeling well). Steven walked back to Queen Victoria Building and looked for something to eat.

Picked up some chicken and rice on the way back at a place that was packed with customers (always a good sign). Started to seriously rain as the hotel doors opened, so maybe our luck is turning around.