Sydney

We spent the last few days of our trip in Sydney, staying at the W Sydney in the Darling Harbour. This location was great for the purposes of our time in Sydney. Aside from always wanting to head back to Australia and having a fantastic vacation, we did have a bit of a specific purpose of the timing of this trip - a family member's MBA convocation ceremony. How could we resist in celebrating that accomplishment particularly when the celebration was in Sydney!! Darling Harbour is a fantastic location, with a large waterfront boulevard that is lined with restaurants and shops, the convention centre where the ceremony was held was a very short walk from the hotel; we even found an outdoor movie theatre with giant pillows as the seating. Darling Harbour is a pretty popular and happening neighbourhood. It's also pretty walkable to other cool neighbourhoods like the university district where we found a funky wine bar restaurant our first evening in town. While perhaps a bit of a longer walk, Circular Quay and the Rocks neighbourhoods is also doable. We managed to squeeze this walk in one morning and spent time walking along the water by the Opera House and marvelling at all the development that occurred since our last time here when we stayed in Circular Quay. On our final day before our long flight home, we took a passenger ferry over to Manly Beach. The street leading from the ferry terminal to the beach is a short few blocks and is lined again with shops and restaurants.This beach is a well known surfing spot and on that particular day there was some sort of outrigger competition going on. There is a vast area of sandy beach and even grassy area with some tree cover where you can park yourself and just chill; which is mostly what we did. We didn't swim much in the ocean due to jelly sightings and also the seaweed was pretty bad this time of year, but we had a lovely day trip here regardless and enjoyed the company of family.

All in all this was a great stop at the end of our 2 week Australian adventure. We got to celebrate and spend time with family for a pretty significant life accomplishment. We got to experience so many new things this time, explored new areas and sights, had fabulous weather, enjoyed a lot of really good and new foods, and managed to relax and recharge.  

Until next time....

To travel is to live...life is good!