Friday, March 6^th, 2020

Sydney Day 2

Sandy Sydney

During the night Queen Mary 2 had left her anchorage and moved to the quayside, and the Costa ship had moved out into the harbor.

When we woke up the Opera House was right outside out balcony, and the sun was making a brave effort to shine. No more rain!

We decided that it was time for a beach day, so what better beach to visit than Bondi Beach, so off we went.

When it was time for lunch we found a great beachfront restaurant where we sat outside and had mussels and prawns, and I had Prosecco. The meal took ages, but that’s the way we wanted it. It was just perfect. It had the perfect name too – Bucket List. It would certainly have been on mine.

When we were walking back to the bus we decided to stop for an ice cream. I do not do very well with cones, as I always end up with ice cream on my face and clothes, so to prevent malfunctions I asked for one scoop of chocolate ice cream in a cup.

Well the scoop was significantly larger than the cup, and despite my valiant efforts I could not control it, and it melted all over the place. Soon I was covered in chocolate ice cream, which was jolly unfair. But the ice cream did taste good, so all in all it was worth it.

Brian was feeling like having a beer by that time, so we took the bus to the Rocks and found a great little pub.

My eye shadow brush had disintegrated a few days ago, leaving small particles in my eyes which was most unpleasant, and not a bit attractive, so after the pub we walked in to town to try to get a new brush.

I had forgotten how beautiful the downtown area was, and as it took a while for us to find the shop we were looking for, we had a nice walking tour of the area.

We then decided that it was time to head back to Circular Quay and find somewhere for dinner.

Our original plan had been to have dinner with friends from university, but unfortunately due to the death of a friend of theirs they could not make it. Cunard had obtained tickets to Faust which was playing at the Opera House, and I had not purchased any as I thought we would be out to dinner. By the time I tried to get tickets it was sold out, which was disappointing as I would have loved to go to the opera, but it did give us a chance to have a romantic dinner for two.

We found a great restaurant in Circular Quay and sat at our table with the best view in the world – there was our beautiful ship across the water from us. The food was good, and we had a lovely evening, and had another ice cream as we walked back to the ship. At least this time there was room for the ice cream in the cup, and no mess resulted.

Back on board we went to check out the sail away dance on deck 8. Purple Haze was playing, but no one was dancing.

We then wandered around the outside decks. It was a lovely warm evening, and the city looked very pretty. I was initially annoyed that we would miss sailing out of the harbor in daylight, but when we left it was after midnight, and it was still a beautiful sight gliding past the bridge and the Opera House. Yes, Sydney really is one of my favorite ports.