The day was bright and sunny!! We set out to use the other parts of the multi-tickets we had bought when last in town. The Sydney Tower, topped with the “golden marshmallow” observation area, was our first destination. We arrived to find hundreds of school uniformed teenagers also visiting the tower. Most of them were more or less diligently filling out several page assignments about what they were seeing--we felt like we should be, too. We were pleased, however, to identify many places and areas that we had already visited.
Included in the entrance price to the tower was the Oz Trek Ride, one of those fast paced movies that is like a ride. We strapped in and prepared to take off. However, when the man hosting the movie invited anyone to move if they felt the need to sit in a seat that didn’t gyrate, I took the invitation. Good thing! Even without the seat movements, I started feeling nauseous within minutes. I spent the rest of the movie with my eyes closed!! Mark says it was pretty good……….
Enjoying the sunshine, we walked back to Darling Harbour and entered the touristy attraction called Wildlife World. We were prepared to be under whelmed but it actually turned out to be interesting and well done. We saw Australian snakes and spiders and frogs as well as kangaroos, koalas, a kookaburra, wombats, and a massive salt water crocodile to mention a few. Did you know that Australia boasts 18 of the top 20 most poisonous snakes in the world? Fortunately for us, they are not very active in the winter.
Lunch was at an outdoor table overlooking the harbour. Ahhhh….. We then walked back to our hotel, reclaimed all our luggage, went to our room and repacked everything, and got ready to walk to the Opera House for a late afternoon tour and evening concert.
The Sydney Opera House is exquisite both outside and inside. The tour gave us history as well as physical access to most of the venues in the complex. Initially projected to be completed in three years at a cost of $7 million, the building took 16 years to complete at a cost of over $100 million. Apparently, it was finally paid for by selling lottery tickets to the public! The engineering was incredibly complex and ground breaking.
After the tour, we found a little restaurant on the wharf for dinner before our 8 PM symphony concert. We emerged from dinner to find the wharf thronging with people watching lights on the Opera House and some surrounding buildings. It was the first night of Vivid Sydney, a festival which uses “Sydney as a canvas for amazing light installations, beautiful music and creative ideas”. The Opera House was indeed a canvas of myriad changing designs and colors. Everyone was in festive mode (especially after days of rain and with prediction of an impending “mini-cyclone”).
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra concert, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy the current musical director, was a treat. We heard Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro Overture, Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier and Mahler’s Songs of the Earth, a piece we didn‘t know. They were beautifully performed and sung and conducted with great vigor.
On leaving, we discovered the crowds were still massed on the wharf watching the lights. We walked the many blocks back to our hotel completely satisfied with our taste of Sydney.
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