Iconic Sydney

First a tour of the Opera House. When I first saw it from the outside my reaction was, "oh, that doesn't look special at all," which reminded me of the time I first saw the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen - she was tiny! So many photos have conditioned me against the experience of the reality. But the tour was interesting, even if the interior of the Opera House (opera stage, concert hall and three theaters of differing sizes) was not very functional. One of our group uses a wheel chair and she was unable to come on the tour - during it we had to deal with 200 steps without any elevators. Then again, Australians are sports crazy, so I suppose they are all fit enough to cope ;)

Lunch was during a harbor cruise. Our guide was excellent and gave us a sense of all the different bays, districts and historical connections of the land and water. We were even given examples of real estate prices - very pricey.

Next a coach tour through city streets down to Bondi Beach where we finished the afternoon with a demonstration by volunteer members of the Bondi Beach Surf Club. Unfortunately the ocean was calm today with only a few smallish waves and consequently no rip currents, so we did not have the opportunity to see club members in action.

Only one things remains - deciding which of the many good restaurants and cafes that were pointed out to us during the day to go to for dinner.