Sydney, Australia - January 2010

Day 1, Jan 10 – Arrival

As I mentioned before, flying domestic Qantas flights are great.  We flew them again from Cairns to Sydney and during our 3 hour flight enjoyed a pasta meal and an ice cream bar.  They also played a movie, but we chose not to watch it.

We arrived in Sydney in the early evening and were picked up by a friend of Mike’s.  We were staying with him, his wife, and their new baby girl during our stay.  Their apartment was located in Potts Point and had a fantastic view of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge. 

We usually get to a new city, check into our hotel, throw our stuff in our room, and go out to explore.  I was itching to get out and explore a little, so after catching up a little with friends, we went out for a walk from Potts Point to Rushcutters Bay.

We enjoyed dinner at our friends this evening.

Day 2, Jan 11 – Exploring Sydney on Foot

We woke up early and found a little café along the sidewalk to have a little breakfast.  We found a small place called Cafe Nest that is run by a very friendly guy.  We just had some cappuccino and egg, ham and cheese sandwiches (meal $17).

After getting a little nutrition, we walked from Potts Point through the Royal Botanic Garden and over to the Opera House.  We then headed off to find the way to walk across the Harbour Bridge.  It took a little while, but we went through The Rocks area before finding the stairs up to the street level of the Bridge.  We walked across the Bridge and back enjoying the views from the Bridge.

We really wanted to go on the Tribal Warrior Harbour Cruise, but it happened to not be running that day.  So, we walked back to the Botanic Garden looking for the Gardens Restaurant for lunch.  While looking for the restaurant, we discovered there are flying foxes in the Garden that sleep in the trees during the day.

The Gardens Restaurant is in the middle of the park and has white linens and servers dressed in black.  We were probably a little under dressed in our tourist gear, but we had a great lunch here anyway.  Mike had steamed blue eye cod and I went with a spatchcock chicken (a way of grilling chicken).  Sometimes I have no idea what something is when I order, but I like to be adventurous and try new food.  The description sounded very promising, so I didn’t hesitate to order the spatchcock.  We also enjoyed a glass of wine each with our meal and took in all the tourists under us going through the park.  This lunch was a bit of a splurge, but very delicious and full of flavors (meal $85).

After our tasty lunch, we took a rest in the park under a tree and tried to figure out what else we wanted to do with our day.  We thought about taking a ferry to Manly, but opted to go find the Lord Nelson Brewery and Hotel.  We’d originally had a room booked with them before deciding to stay with friends.  We arrived and immediately loved the place.  We enjoyed a couple of pints of their house brew.  We tried to get back there during our stay in Sydney, but never made it. 

For dinner, we decided on Otto’s in Woolloomooloo.  This Italian restaurant is located on a pier and Russell Crowe lives on the end of this same pier.  The restaurant is known to be a place where celebrities like to hang out as well.  We didn’t have any celebrity spottings during our dinner, but it is a nice place to sit and enjoy dinner with a great view of the city lights.  We weren’t super impressed with the food, but it was ok.  We had oysters for an appetizer and I found them to be very tasty as I usually find oysters kind of fishy tasting.  These were really fresh.  We both had the fish specials, Mike went with the Flounder and I had the Swordfish.  We ended up switching dishes after having a few bites.  We liked each other’s dish better.  This meal was another splurge (meal including wine $150) with 2 glasses of wine; a Torbreck Steading and a Randall’s Yard Cabernet.  Food is pretty expensive overall in Australia unless you stick with fish and chips or meat pies. 

Day 3, Jan 12 – Blue Mountains

This morning, we went to a place recommended by our friend for breakfast.  It was another little sidewalk café in Potts Point.  It was the Spring Espresso Bar on Challis St (meal $34).  We sat at a table outside where they were all lined up along the sidewalk closest to the street curb.  The food was pretty good.  I had banana French toast and Mike had pancakes.  The French toast came out with fried bananas and it was very good! 

After a very satisfying breakfast, we made our way to Circular Quay to catch a train to Katoomba to visit the Blue Mountains.  We ended up on the 11am train and sat back to enjoy the 2 hour ride in the air conditioned train.  It was very hot today.  We arrived in Katoomba after 1pm and went to buy tickets for the hop on and off bus in the ticket office next to the train.  We needed to get on the bus at 1:30, so we settled for meat pies ($4 each) for lunch.  Mike had been dying to try one anyway.  He ordered a meat one, I ordered a potato one and it ended up being meat and potato which was way better. 

Since we got to the area in the afternoon, we had about 2 and ½ hours to explore the Blue Mountains.  We did the 3 popular hikes (1, 5, and 8) as was recommended by the bus driver.  It was so hot and humid.  But, the views were very cool.  We saw the Three Sisters and Echo Point.  We also saw the nice Leura Cascades.  By the time we finished the last, long walk 8, it was almost 5pm.  We took the bus into Leura and everything was closed down!  We were starving from all the walking, so we again had to settle for meat pies.  I opted for a ham and cheese crossiant this time.  We got on the 5:30pm train back to Sydney and ended up back by 7:15pm.  If we had to do this experience over again, we would have gotten to the Blue Mountains earlier or stayed the night there to have more time.  It felt like we just ran though it in our couple of hours.

After our long, hot day, we enjoyed some drinks with our friend in the Kings Cross district.  We got to enjoy some rain and thunder this evening.  We don’t get thunder in San Diego, so it was pretty cool. 

Day 4, Jan 13 – Aquarium

We walked to find Cafe Hernandez that was recommended in Frommer’s Australia guide.  We found the small coffee shop and had the lady recommend some coffee for us.  She was very friendly and we enjoyed the coffee.  It was on a side street away from a lot of foot traffic, so it was pretty quiet.  We also had a couple of pastries with our coffee. 

We left the coffee shop and made our way to the Sydney Aquarium.  We opted to go here instead of the Sydney Zoo, because we have a pretty cool zoo in San Diego.  Also, Frommer recommended it over the Zoo.  It was a pretty cool Aquarium, but maybe we should have gone to the Zoo instead.  We spent 2 hours checking out the different, colorful fish, the Dugongs (aka Manatee aka Sea Cow), and the Sharks.  Both the Dugong and Shark exhibits had an underwater viewing tunnel. 

We decided to catch some lunch while we were in Darling Harbour at Pontoon Bar.  We both had a huge steak sandwich with a beer (meal $31).

We went back to our friend’s house through Hyde Park and took a nap when we got back.  After our rest and downtime, we went out to have sushi in Kings Cross.  We went to Busshari and had a great experience (meal $85).  We got a sake sampler with 3 different sakes.  We ordered 2 rolls; the Tasmania and Dynamite, and Udon noodles with prawns.  The food was very good and we had fun trying something new, the udon noodles.  We usually just get rolls when we have sushi.

It was raining after we finished dinner and we decided we weren’t ready to call it a night, so we walked in the rain to an Irish bar, O’Malley's.  We had passed it earlier in the day and thought we should come back for a drink.  We ordered 2 Guinness, but were super disappointed.  They didn’t taste like Guinness!  We don’t know if it was an imitation or if something was wrong with the beer.  If they were selling fake Guinness, that should be a crime!  We ended up leaving our barely drank beer on the table and left and called it a night.

Day 5, Jan 14 – Hunter Valley

We had to get up early to meet our tour guide down the street at 7am for our tour to Hunter Valley.  We opted to go on a tour, because we were planning to taste lots of wine and didn’t want to worry about driving.  We chose Boutique Tours based on reviews on TripAdvisor and the fact that they were a small tour group and not one of those huge buses full of people.  Certain wineries in Hunter Valley won’t take large groups. 

We stopped and picked up more people for a total of 10 of us and were heading to the Valley by 8:30am.  We had people from England, Copenhagen, Australia, Ireland, Canada and the U.S. on the tour.  On the way to Hunter Valley, our guide, Jason, did a lot of talking.  He educated us on Sydney, Hunter Valley, wine tasting, and the Rabbitohs!  Jason is a big fan of the South Sydney Rabbitohs and will try to make you one too!

Our first stop was Iron Gate Estate.  We arrived here around 10:15am and tasted 7 wines and had a little tour of the winery.  We sampled the wine standing along a tasting bar inside the tasting room.  We tasted the 2006 Milenio, 2006 Unwooded Chardonnay, 2005 Oaked Semillion, 2005 Shiraz, 2006 Shiraz/Cabernet, 2009 Sweet Semillon, and 2008 Sweet Shiraz.  Most of the wine in Australia is aged in stainless steal barrels instead of oak which is used mostly in Napa.  Australian wines are also not usually corked, but have screw tops.  We ended up liking this place the most of all our stops.  The tasting and tour were very informative and the guide, Joann, was very friendly.  We didn’t realize what unique wine they have here until we compared it to our tastings at the other wineries.  We ended up bringing home a bottle of Sweet Shiraz.  I also like the Chard and I normally don’t like white wine.

Our next stop was Pooles Rock.  We sampled 9 wines sitting in a little room off to the side.  We weren’t even sat at a table where we could swirl the glass.  We ended up sloshing our wine around before tasting it.  We tasted 2008 Cockfighter’s Ghost Semillon, 2008 Cockfighter’s Ghost Verdelho, 2009 Cockfighter’s Ghost Viognier, 2007 Cockfighter’s Ghost Chard, 2008 Riesling, 2009 Firestick Rose, 2007 Cockfighter’s Ghost Shiraz Viognier, 2060 Firestick Shiraz, and NV Firestick Liqueur Shiraz.  Overall, I didn’t like the wine here and poured out most of my pours.  I liked the Liqueur Shiraz the most which reminded me of Madeira wine.  The pourer, Paul, would pour the wine and leave the room, it was pretty boring.  I like a talkative pourer.

After stopping for a quick lunch where we had sandwiches, we went on to Tempus Two Winery.  We first went in to the Smelly Cheese shop to taste some smelly cheese.  We had Pesto Feta, Sundried Tomato Frais Fromage, Labna, Herb and Garlic Frais Fromage, and Gorgonzola and Mascarpone Cheese.  It was a very interesting experience.  By the way, none of the cheese smelled bad.

After some tasty cheese, we headed over to the Tempus tasting room.  This tasting was on our own.  Not everyone from the group tasted wine here.  We tasted a 2007 Tempranillo, 2008 Grenache, Shiraz, and Mourverde (GSM), 2007 Barossa Vinevale Shiraz, 2006 Beechworth Sangiovese, 2008 Coonawarra Cabernet and 2008 Hunter Valley Shiraz.  I ended up liking the Sangiovese and Cabernet the most, we came home with a bottle of the Cabernet.

In between our next tasting, we drove around looking for some kangaroos.  We found a couple under a tree, spotted by me, and some people got out to try and get really close to them.  I don’t believe in getting that close to wildlife, so I enjoyed watching them from a distance.  It looked like it was a mother and offspring couple. 

After our kangaroo safari, we made a final stop at Peacock Hill winery.  Someone on the tour requested this place.  That’s another great thing about this tour, the guide will take requests and try to make it to those places.  I did not like this place, mainly because the winemaker, George, was super stuffy.  He seemed pretty put off by our group and didn’t like anyone asking questions.  If someone did ask a question, he made it seem like it was a stupid question.  Maybe I was the only one that picked this up, but I put on my review of the tour that they should not go back there again.  Regardless, we tasted 2006 Godfather Sparkling MCZD, Absent Friends Sauv. Blanc/Semillon, 2008 Top Block Chard, Fond Memories, 2006 Jaan Shiraz, 2005 Jaan Shiraz, 2007 Tall Tales & True Fortified, and 2008 Good Company.  Because of the poor attitude from the winemaker, I don’t remember much about the wine itself and we definitely did not purchase a bottle.

After Peacock Hill, we made our way back to Sydney.  We dropped one of our members off at the Crowne Plaza as he was going to stay the night.  The tour will drop you off and pick you up the next day if interested.  I wish we would have known about that option as we might have stayed the night.  The ride back was pretty quiet and most people took naps.  We were back in Sydney by 6pm.  It was a great day for wine tasting and the tour company was perfect!

We decided to take our friend out for dinner that evening.  We went to Opium Den, a popular, local Thai place in Potts Point (meal $70).  The place is dimly lit with red décor and interesting chandeliers all over.  We were crammed in with everyone else in the lively atmosphere.  We ordered and shared some Spring Rolls, Pad Thai Noodles, Chicken and Sweet Potato, and a Beef Dish.  The chicken and sweet potato is what I’d ordered and it was awesome!  All the food was good!  We could bring our own wine (BYO) and brought 2 bottles with us.  Our friend brought one and we brought our Ginger wine from Shannonvale Winery and it was very good with our Thai food, just like the winemaker said it would be.  Our ginger wine needed chilled and the server put it in the freezer for us until we were ready for it. 

After our yummy meal, we headed for a few drinks at a place in Woolloomooloo before calling it a night.

Day 6, Jan 15 – Bondi Beach and an Opera

We got a ride to Bondi with our friend and had breakfast at Trio (meal $47).  We sat at a table on the sidewalk and enjoyed the Big Breakfast (eggs with toast, bacon, mushrooms, sausage, oven-roasted tomato and hashbrowns) and Vegetarian Breakfast (eggs with carrot sourdough toast, spinach and cherry tomatoes, saute mushrooms, avocado and a huge hunk of feta) and 2 cappuccinos. 

After breakfast, we walked from Bondi beach to Bronte beach along a scenic coastal walk.  We got to Bronte and jumped in for a swim.  The water was very cold, but refreshing.  We relaxed on the beach a little.

I’d left my dress for the Opera behind in Melbourne, so we had to go shopping for a dress for me.  We walked about 1.5 miles to the mall and spent a while looking for a dress.  We don’t usually enjoy shopping on our vacations, so it was a bit of a pain to get this done.  I finally found a dress (I’m picky) and we made our way to the metro train and rode it back to Kings Cross. 

After a little bit of relaxing, we got ready for dinner and the opera, Manon, which we were going to see at the Opera House.  Neither of us had ever been to the opera.  We took a cab to Aria and enjoyed a nice meal with a fantastic view of the Opera House (meal not including wine $150).  We ordered a bottle of the Wanderer Shiraz (Yarra Valley), it was delicious.  We shared the scallops (roasted and served with green asparagus, basil puree, tomato and black olives) for an appetizer.  Mike had the Snapper and I had the Ravioli (a big ravioli with lots of sauces and flavors, I can't find the description for it).  Both were pretty good, but the ravioli ended up being very good.  For dessert, we shared coffee cake with espresso ice cream…yum! 

After dinner, we walked over to the Opera House.  We got our tickets from will call and headed to our seats.  We were really high up in one of the last few rows.  The opera was in French, but they have subtitles.  I never knew the opera had subtitles, but how else would you know what they were saying!  During intermission, we went out and enjoyed the night views of the harbour and Harbour Bridge from a balcony.  The opera was long, 3 hours, but a very cool experience.  Now we can say we saw an opera in the Sydney Opera House! 

Day 7, Jan 16 – Departure

We got up and had some coffee with our friend before he took us to the airport.

We found it a little more difficult to sleep on the flight home as we left in the early afternoon and it was daylight outside most of the flight.  We watched movies and I finally got a couple of hours of sleep.  I was going right back to work the day after we got back, so I had to get some sleep.  Mike was still going to have another whole day to rest, he stayed up most of the flight. 

The trip to Australia was very fun, but we prefer to travel to foreign places…we think.  We found a lot of similarities between Australia and the U.S.  Our favorite and most memorable time was spent in Northern Queensland in Cape Tribulation.  We hope to get to the Red Centre, Tasmania and Perth on our next visit….someday.

Continue Reading About Our Trip:

3 Nights in Melbourne

5 Nights in Cape Tribulation