1 April 2011 - Lane Cove National Park, Sydney, NSW

Another magical day in this amazing city draws to an end. No rain today! Blue skies and sunshine drew us out touring this morning, on the rail to Milson’s Point, from where we walked (for the third time) across the harbour bridge. While I took no further photos from this wonderful vantage point, I am not becoming numb to the harbour’s beauty.

We walked down through the cobbled lanes of The Rocks and across to Circular Quay to consult a very helpful but "camp" information officer about walks at the ferry destinations. Our Explore Australia had put us on to this, as it obviously had for someone else, who had asked the same question recently, but alas there is no formal pamphlet or information on this. This ticket officer helpfully handed us a handful of timetables each which included a map of the locality in greater detail than we had. We then walked to the Denby Cinema on the Opera Quay. We understood that a Metropolitan production of the opera Lucia Di Lammermoor  was showing over the weekend and we wanted to find out about times and cost.

We left the theatre and gathered all our papers up, checked out the skies and crowds, and decided that today would be a good day to check out the markets before the weekend crowds of workers and their children decided to do the same. 

From Circular Quay we caught the train to Central, then found ourselves a park bench in Belmont Park to eat our lunch. Refuelled, we set off for Paddy’s Markets which are housed in the huge Haymarket building. We found all manner of fruits, vegetables, meat and fish, herbs and spices, clothing, sunglasses, souvenirs, handbags, wigs and hairpieces, toys and model helicopters, and so much more. We came out with a new shopping bag filled with socks, a scarf, bok choy, apples, broccoli and capsicums, all bought for a song. We regretted that we had not found this wonderful place earlier in the piece. From there it was just a hop, step and a jump across to Chinatown, an alley of restaurants and food stalls, in the middle of a whole area of shops resplendent with Chinese signage.

Every corner we came around revealed further surprises, treasures of this wonderful and most beautiful city. We walked on down toward Darling Harbour, past the Sydney Exhibition Centre, on through Tumbalong Park, past the Sydney Convention Centre to the Harbourside Shopping Centre in Cockle Bay. We crossed back across this harbour inlet on the Pyrmont Bridge now a pedestrian only bridge, back up toward the city centre, down Market, Yorke and George Streets to the Wynyard Station, and caught the train home.

As we sat down to dinner, Olly rang and I had the opportunity to wish wee three year Charlie “Happy Birthday”. 

The central ara of Sydney with some of the points of interest visited and referred to, ciucled.