Australia Part I: Sydney-Dawes Point and The Rocks

November 24, 2023

Australia Part I: Sydney-Dawes Point and The Rocks

We said goodbye to New Zealand, with bittersweet emotions, on November 15th. The beauty and kiwi hospitality is REAL, and we are going to miss it! Packing up the house and all of our bags wasn't too bad - we sold the bikes we had purchased on Trademe, made a donation run, and sent home one giant duffel bag full of winter clothes, books, souvenirs, etc. Even after unloading all those items, we still seemed weighed down by lots of luggage packed to the gills! There are no UberXL's in Chch, but luckily our uber driver to the airport had a Tesla and was able to shove it all in the "boots" in the front and back of the car; plus, we all had a luggage of one type or another on our laps. Good thing it was only a 10 minute ride to the airport!

The 3.5 hour Air New Zealand flight to Sydney was easy as. They made an announcement that they would be serving dinner and the kids got so excited for a meal on the plane. But, then as the cart and stewardess got closer, we realized you must have had to prepay for food when you booked your ticket. All of the seats on the right of the side of the plane were getting served dinner and beverages of their choice. Us plebs on the left side were only offered coffee, tea, or water-not even soda. It was hilarious watching the kids' (and our) emotions dropped from excited anticipation to complete disappointment. Guess everyone was stuck eating the pb&j's we had packed.

Customs in Sydney was super quick and we easily got an UberXL to our airbnb, which was located in an area called The Rocks. The location was amazing;we were minutes walking to the Sydney Harbor Bridge and The Opera House. Not to mention tons of restaurants, cafes, and public transportation from Circular Quay (one of the main transportation hubs in Sydney, where you can catch ferries, trains, light rails and busses).

We found dinner at Lotus Dumpling Bar, a five minute walk from our place. After dinner, we had a nice stroll to the harbor to see the Opera House and Bridge lit up at night. It was beautiful and the weather was perfect. We quickly started to notice that the fashion in Sydney was A LOT different than what we were used to in NZ; Meaning, there was an actual sense of fashion 😎. The people walking around Sydney were FANCY! Maggie and I immediately knew we were going to need a shopping day to update our wardrobes for the big city!

Thursday, November 16th - Bondi Beach Day

After a couple of hours of work and school, we got ready to head to the beach - Bondi Beach. The public transportation offerings in Sydney are top notch and you can choose from a variety of vehicles and routes to get to where you need to go. The city uses something called an "Opal Card" to take all and any form of public transportation. They sell Opal cards at convenience stores all over the city. It was easy to find them at Circular Quay, and we boarded our bus here for Bondi Beach.

At Bondi, we grabbed a quick lunch and then headed to the beach and to Bondi's ocean pool, called "Bondi's Iceberg Swimming Club." They have ocean pools at many of the main beaches here for those who don't want to swim in the big waves and with the sharks. The ocean pools are right up against the waves and filled with ocean water; some of them are free and some you have to pay a small fee to get in. When you're in the pools, the waves from the ocean coming splashing right up against the pool and over the edge - it's pretty unique. We spent almost three hours swimming here. Jay and I had lots of fun people watching; There were so many people filming content for their social media feeds. It was hilarious watching them try and get their perfect shots and perfect poses over and over and over again. We watched the same three people do this for hours on end - made us realize we are definitely old and from a different generation - lol.

Our cute street in the Rocks

The Argyle - on our walk to the Circular Quay

The infamous Bondi Beach

Iceberg's pools

Pool with Bondi in the background

Serious waves - life guards patrolling and patrons ordered to swim inside the yellow flags due to strong rip tide.

waves crashing into the ocean pool

After the Icebergs swim - we walked the coastal walkway from Bondi to Coogee Beach. It's a path that goes along the cliff tops, past several beaches, and past an old cemetery. The walk was 11KM from Bondi to Coogee; we promised gelato at the end which helped get us there! The views were spectacular, and the clouds rolled in; which probably helped keep us stay cool. We were easily able to catch a bus back to Circular Quay from Coogee Beach.

Coastal walk

Baths at Bronte Beach (another ocean pool)

Coastal walkway with cemetery in the distance

We found some McMahon's

Another beach, another (small) ocean pool

Christmas decor galore in Sydney!

Friday, November 17th - Sarah and Kids take an adventure / Dinner at McMahon's Point

Jay had work meetings from 8:00am - 1:00pm, and then he had to catch up on some other stuff, so the kids and I ventured out to do some shopping. The first place Maggie wanted to hit was The White Fox Boutique. This is the company that sells the sweatshirts that all the teens and twenty-somethings were wearing in New Zealand. We had to take the Train from Circuluar Quay and then walk about twenty minutes to the Boutique. When we got off the tram and started walking, we were in some random neighborhood in Sydney, and Finn was getting nervous like I didn't know where I was taking them.

"This doesn't look right," he kept saying, "Where are the shops?" Well, his intuition was correct - it wasn't right. It turns out The White Fox Boutique was their warehouse and delivery center, and they are only an online company - oops. Luckily we found a cute little french patisserie, Frenchies, to grab some food and make a plan B.

Another main shopping area in Sydney is called Bondi Junction, so we found a bus that would take us there. From our lunch locations, we easily caught the bus to Bondi Junction. However, as we were on the bus, the driver started making an announcement that none of us could understand. I consulted the google map on my phone to see where we were, and the bus was completely off course for Bondi Junction; looked like it was following another route. We did some quick re-planning, and decided to jump off that bus and transfer to another bus, the 352, to Bondi Junction. We hopped off our current bus and waited and waited and waited for 352. There was a 304 bus that came by a few times, which would take us back to Circular Quay (near our home) and that became our backup plan (plan C) if we didn't see the 352. Finally the 352 was approaching, but it didn't stop! We had to quickly jump on the 304, that was about to leave and we got on at the middle entrance of the bus, only to get YELLED at by the drive, "What are you doing," he shouted, "you can't get on in the middle!!" oops, again....

At this point, the kids were really starting to doubt me and my navigation skills - Finn was practically in tears because he thought we were lost and was getting freaked out. We weren't lost, well not "really' lost; I had it under control. The new bus happened to all of a sudden drive by a big shopping area right in downtown Sydney, and we were happy to jump off and FINALLY start hitting the stores. Maggie and I had a lot of luck at Zara, I got some new sunnies/updated my watch band at Seed, and Finn got to browse the Lego store for Xmas ideas. The store front windows (LV, Kate Spade, Fendi, etc). were all done up for Xmas and we walked by Sydney's giant Xmas tree (kind of like their version of Rockefeller center). Thankfully, it was a quick 15 minute walk home after our multifaceted shopping adventure!

That night we all took a ferry to a neighborhood in North Sydney called McMahon's Point. We found a Spanish Tapas restaurant for dinner and had some great food and wine!

Ready to shop - looking fresh as daisies

Ferry to McMahon's Point

We made it to our homeland ;) Opera House and Sydney Bridge in background

Purple trees in full bloom in Sydney

Saturday, November 18th - Opera House and Sydney Bridge Climb

We took a guided tour of the Sydney Opera House, went out to a nice lunch at Bar Cycle, and then climbed to the top of the Sydney Bridge. The kids loved the Bridge climb. I thought it was pretty fun too; the views were amazing from the top; it was VERY windy up there! For me, the Opera House Tour was the highlight of the day. The story behind how it was designed and built is fascinating; it really is an architectural marvel!

The Opera House

Sydney Bridge Climb!!!

Other people climbing the bridge

Climbers heading up...

Sunday, November 19th - Chinatown

Today we took a guided tour of Chinatown, with a local named Justin. He started this tour with the intent of getting more locals familiar with the history of The Chinese in Australia and to learn more about the restaurants and food in Chinatown. There were only 8 of us total on the tour and we went to four different restaurants to sample their food, which Justin had pre-ordered for all of us ahead of time.

The weather was sunny and beautiful and we learned a lot about the history of Chinese immigration in Australia. Many Chinese came to Australia in the mid 1800's during the gold rush, but they always faced a lot of racism. When Australia became a country in 1901, they implemented The White Australia Policy. I believe at that point 3% of the population was Chinese and Chinatown was a booming place in Sydney. Sadly, with the new policy, it made it impossible for new Chinese (or any non-European immigrants) to come into Australia. Also, if they left Australia (even if they were born there), it was nearly impossible for them to get back into the country. Eventually, in the mid 1960's The White Australia Policy ended and more non-European immigrants started to come back to the country.

Pics from our tour - one of my favorite experiences of the trip!