Sydney
Five days in a great city
Back in 2018, I made a whirlwind tour of Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, and Brisbane and resolved two things: 1) I wanted to go back to Australia, and 2) For that amount of jet lag, a month is a better amount of time to visit. This time around, we had five glorious days in a city that will charm your socks off. Here are some highlights:
Getting Around Is a Snap
Mostly, we walked, because our hotel was in such a great location. We stayed at The Tank Stream Hotel, a nice if basic hotel located very conveniently on Pitt Street in the Central Business District. It’s an odd name for a hotel, isn’t it? But it’s named for a tributary of Sydney Cove that used to be a source of fresh water for the area. We were walking distance from Circular Quay (“key”), where ferries depart regularly, as well as George Street, a main thoroughfare and possibly the oldest street in Australia. George Street is also an easy place to catch a tram.
For those times when a walk is a bit too far, public transit is super easy to use. You don’t need to buy a special card or anything. You can just tap on and tap off with any chip-enabled credit card. Same goes for ferries, just tap your card to get on and off. Our card doesn’t charge international transaction fees, a definite plus.
To get to and from the airport, Uber was the best option. There is a tram that goes out there, but due to the airport zone surcharge, it’s no cheaper and definitely a bit less convenient.
So Much To See
As we eased through the worst of jet lag, we were able to get lots of sunshine and exercise walking to The Botanical Gardens, The Opera House, The Rocks, Sydney Museum of Modern Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales (one of the best museums I’ve ever visited by far), Martin Place, Hyde Park and the ANZAC Memorial, and the Library of New South Wales among other highlights. While I had a meeting in the CBD, Chris took a ferry to Manly Beach to check it out, and even commuting to a quick recording session was fun because I got to take a ferry over to North Sydney, taking in the view of this gorgeous city from the water.
The People!
I remembered Australia feeling very friendly and open, and it has lived up to that memory in each place we’ve been so far. Because of the welcoming Working Holiday Visa program, it’s very easy for people age 18-35 to spend a year or more working in Australia. The combination of Australian joie de vivre and adventurous foreigners makes Sydney a vibrant, cosmopolitan city. As they are only recently emerging from strict COVID lockdowns, the excitement and energy here is infused with gratitude that travel and interaction is possible again.
By the way - special mention goes to Sunil and staff at ResMed in Surry Hills - we had a CPAP machine power supply burn out due to using the wrong setting on a converter plug, and were able to rent a CPAP from ResMed for a really affordable price! We just return it to a ResMed store in Melbourne before we head home, easy peasy.
I also got to connect with some work colleagues while in Sydney and see places I wouldn’t otherwise have seen. Thanks to fellow narrator Coralie Bywater for the tour of the Opera House and the memorable lunch in the staff canteen overlooking the harbour. Thanks to Bruce at Noise International for the VIP treament and invigorating conversation about what it has meant to work in a creative business through a global pandemic. Thanks to Alex from Equity for a lovely visit at a French cafe, talking life, art, politics and the Obama visit. Thanks to Karen and Annie at Audible for the great catch-up about the state of audiobooks here, which was fascinating to me, talking through the similarities and differences as this market continues to grow. Thanks to Nicole at NIDA for allowing us to witness the exciting work your students are doing, and for the drinks and snacks with you and Carrasco!
The Food
Breakfast each day was at the hotel since that was included (I know I know). It was basically the same every day but it was decent, and the coffee machine made very good long blacks so we were fine.
We ate at a variety of spots, but my favorites were Whalebridge, between Circular Quay and the Opera House, for the chance to have a little drink and snack and watch the ferry traffic and take in the scene; Bar Totti on George Street for some really great Italian food; and the pièce de résistance, Mr. Wong, which is tucked along a lane behind Bridge Street and has some seriously delicious Cantonese food! I made our reservations weeks ago because it’s such a hot destination these days, and we were not disappointed. We had a dim sum sampler, crispy eggplant, and tried Balmain Bugs, a lobster-like delicacy - yum!
On to Caloundra
Five days wasn’t nearly enough, but we made the most of them and soon it was time to bid farewell to The Tank Stream and Uber out to the airport for our flight to Brisbane. If you ever book a flight on Jetstar (owned by Qantas), really important to understand that it’s much more of a budget commuter airline. Carry-on limit was only 7kg, so we had to go back to the check-in area, check our bags (they didn’t charge us for some reason) and go back through security to get on our flight. I made sure to buy a baggage allowance for the Brisbane to Melbourne flight so we wouldn’t be in that position again.
We landed in Brisbane, and it was time to find Kylie Scott.
to be continued…