Written by Kim
After a long day of travel yesterday we took it easy today getting the lay of the land on the ferry, trains and other transportation exploring Sydney.
Our apartment is in Neutral Bay across the harbor from downtown. It’s quite hilly but a very picturesque neighborhood.
It’s about a 7 minute walk downhill to the wharf to get the ferry to downtown. Spring is in full bloom here. The flowers are gorgeous and air is warm (low 70s) but when the sun is shining its just perfect
We had some brekkie at a little restaurant by the wharf called Thelma & Louise. It was simple but good – there aren’t many options in the neighborhood. I love my flat white coffee here – it’s espresso & steamed milk with more espresso than a latte and less foam than a cappuccino. Yum!
We were up early and had to wait till they opened at 7 am so decided to come back to the apartment to relax a bit before heading out. On the walk back we saw a pay phone where you can call Santa for free.
I am dealing with some pain and swelling of my knee so we’re taking it a bit easy. Back down to the wharf to grab the ferry – it runs every 30 minutes and takes 13 minutes to cross the harbor. We got our Opal passes so all set.
Once downtown we decided to check out the trains and light rail to figure out how to get around. It’s well organized at Circular Quay (pronounced Key) the ferry arrives at the train station.
Parts of the light rail were under repair so we took a bus out to Darling Bay and visited Star casino for a bit. At this point my knee was quite sore and I was having trouble walking so we found a pharmacy and bought a knee brace. I neede an XL because it is very swollen but they didn’t have one so I bought a L. It really helped my knee a lot but was very tight cutting off the circulation on my calf and thigh. Oh boy. Anyhow, we played a few slots and I won enough to buy a 2nd brace. 🤣🤪. Evidently there was some money laundering in this casino so there are very tight controls on play. You need to use their card for every transaction and to get a card you need your passport. We left our passports at the apartment so Alex decided to go back while I rested my leg. When you play machines, you put in your card and load money. If you want to move to another machine the $$ stays on your card. What a pain in butt to keep putting your PIN number in. It took us a while to figure it all out but if you push another button you can get a ticket like we get in US. But only you can use that ticket with your card – no sharing with anyone. Lastly, they have another button called gamble where if you win on a spin (say 50 cents) you can gamble your winning to double or quadruple it. It was a fun adventure.
We were going to go to the Back to the Future show here but my knee was throbbing and we are a big jet lagged so we headed back to the apartment. We stopped at an outdoor restaurant at Circular Quay for some dinner before getting the ferry back. Dinner was delicious. An excellent choice
I bought another knee brace so hopefully this one is more comfortable. The good news is the swelling is down a bit so it’s not hurting as much. Tomorrow (well today I’m writing at 4 am our time Friday) we are heading on a full day tour to the Blue Mountains.
Until then….,
