Cruisin'

Houses on the harbour

I’m back in the big city again. We came back Sunday night, and yesterday spent Monday in Sydney, cruising around the harbour for a couple of hours. The posh houses were pointed out to us, of which there are many. The poshest of them all is up for sale at $60 million Australian dollars. (The AD is worth around 65p. I don’t know what the AD is worth against the US Dollar – you’ll need to check a conversion chart if you want to know!) Saw the landmarks of the first settlers, the convict ships, places where the original inhabitants used to camp. Journeyed out to the Heads (no, not the loo) but the two headlands that guard the mile-wide entrance to Sydney harbour, where the swell makes the boat rock and people start staggering about the deck.

Heading back to Sydney

Back down the other side of the bay into Middle Harbour and under the Spit Bridge (it’s on a sand spit, not because people spit from it) staring at the nudist beaches and the shark nets…53 people were attacked by sharks inside the harbour area in the last year. There are something like 240 separate beaches and coves within the greater harbour area – or is it 240 square miles of water? Both facts may be true, or I may have mis-remembered one of them. The cruise boat was full of people from the Jewel of the Pacific, the ocean-going liner tied up at Circular Quay, and they had a tendency to chatter and not listen to the lady giving us the information over the PA system.

Last night we sampled Sydney nightlife by having a glass of wine in the Loft on Darling Harbour (one of the 240 within the greater harbour, yes?) and then went on to eat in the Meat and Wine Steakhouse Co in Cockle Bay, (part of Darling Harbour, which is part of Sydney Harbour…) where I ordered salmon and it came on a huge skewer suspended from a hook over its own  plate. Scrumptious. And Crème brûlée to follow….with Cloudy Bay dessert wine… which is to die for.