Afternoon Tea at the QVB

I finally made it to the QVB, after over a year in Sydney, to have Afternoon tea. Sitting around playing ladies was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. The food was fantastic, and the selection of tea was heaven for me. I tried the Black Lavender tea which was great, I'd love to know where to buy it. I highly recommend it if Afternoon Tea is your thing and you're in Sydney.

Hyde Park, Sydney

These are very belated photos, but on Sat 15th September I finally visited Hyde Park!

It was such a beautiful day to be exploring Sydney, just taking our time, discovering shops and arcades in the city, and wondering up through Hyde Park on our way to Oxford St for lunch.





The Anzac WW1 memorial is also in Hyde Park. We saw the Eternal Flame, and the cieling is painted in thousands of gold stars, which I am told represent fallen soilders.







I also wandered along Oxford St which I've marked as a MUST to return to when I need to do some serious shopping. Had fantastic lunch down there also. Some interesting shop names though...

Watson's Bay

After we had some bad news (which I'll update you with shortly) we headed out to Watsons Bay for the day. It was just beautiful. A stunning Sydney day.

Murray on the Ferry ride over there. Can you believe it! Murray on Public Transport!



Looking down over the Harbour from Robertson Park.





From the Watson's Bay lookout.



What I think they call "The Gap"... I can see why.



Some crazy rock Lizard.



Us!



Macquarie Lighthouse



Sheltering in the tree from the wind to eat some famous Doyle's Fish & Chips.

Mum visisted! Queen's Birthday long weekend

I know I've been a very bad blogger - so I thought I'd give you all a few updates!

First of all - Mum came to visit! And we had a fabulous time, despite Murray working all long weekend and it being the worst weather I've experienced in Sydney!

On Friday just after she arrived at the airport we went off to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert at Star Casino. It was every bit as funny as the movie and then some. The costumes were fantastic!!!

On Saturday we went to The Rocks Market, which Mum has always wanted to see. We managed to stay dry and check out the Opera House and Circular Quay.

After lunch the weather was just too awful to do anything much at all. So we jumped on the Ferry and took a return trip out to Watsons Bay. It was so wet and cold we didn't get out - not even for Doyles! I have since been back to Watsons Bay though. To give you an idea of what the weather was like though...

It fined up on the way home though where we got a good view of the Opera House and city.

We went out for a nice dinner down at Manly on Saturday night - seafood of course! (yukko!)

I can't remember what we did the rest of the weekend.... this is why I need to update my blog more! Oh I know! We went up to the Blue Mountains to visit some friends! Leura was lovely. :)

Mothers Day in Sydney - Part 2

As if viewing the harbour, a ferry ride, the Chinese Gardens, a walk through the city, Circular Quay and dinner at Manly wasn't enough... we were up early on Sunday morning to see what else we could fit into Mary's short stay with us.After much deliberation we decided to go to Taronga Zoo. I was a little hesitant at first, thinking that a Zoo was a Zoo. But this is a Zoo to be seen. Located on the North Shore of Sydney Harbour just about every animal has a magnificent look out over the water.




The Elephant enclosure was fantastic, with hundreds of people crowding around to see them bath. You can also look inside the Elephant Barn, where you can see where the zookeepers do thier washing, grooming and feeding of Elephants. The Meercats were too cute - I just wanted to reach over the fence and pop one in my handbag to bring home for Boston. I'm sure that they would have gotten along like a house on fire! By far the funniest animal we saw was the Giraffe though. No matter how hard it tried, its tounge just couldn't reach the carrots that the bigger ones were being fed.



After enjoying all the views and the animals at the zoo we had a couple of hours before Mary had to be at the airport. We decided that a short visit to Bondi was in order. There we enjoyed a quick coffee and a walk along the beach. After a busy weekend, that was really all we had the energy for.



It was a great weekend all up, and we look forward to having our next visitor in Sydney that we can use as an excuse to be tourists!

Mothers Day in Sydney

For Mothers Day we had Murray's Mum come and visit us in Sydney! Our first "interstate" visitor - infact.... only our second visitor all together if you don't include the guy that came to drill a hole in the wall for Foxtel.

We squeezed in soooo much in to the one weekend, I felt like a holiday once it was all over!

On the Friday night we headed out to The Oaks Hotel with Murray's work people for yet another going away (such a high turn-over there!). It was a huge pub, with a big beer garden and lots of different rooms. We all spent most of the night in one of the function rooms upstairs before we had to make room for another party who'd actually booked the room! Not a bad little spot though, with Murray spending most of the night introducing people to his new friend Bloody Mary.

Speaking of Mary, we had to get up early the next day because Mary (mother in law kind, not the bloody kind) was arriving - and we needed to make the house presentable! So after a mad rush - I was glad that we only live in a small unit - much quicker to clean!

After picking her up from the airport Mary came back here to check out the house. We showed her around our unit, the shops across the road, and Murray even took us for a tour of his workplace. After all that we headed down to Crows Nest for a quite bite for lunch. Then the real fun began!

First stop was for a nice look out over the harbour from Blues Point. Driving around the area we stumbled across this by accident one day, and as you can see, is an excellent vantage point. We wandered around here for a while, before deciding to walk over to McMahons Point to catch a Ferry - our very first Ferry ride!



Although we intended on going to Ciruclar Quay, we ended up taking the ferry over to Darling Harbour, as it was the first one to come along. Don't let those sunny blue skies fool you - it was chilly waiting for a Ferry to come along. I wouldn't like to be one of the many thousands of people who take them to get to work each day!



Walking around Darling Harbour we decided to bypass the Lindt Cafe (note, THEY decided to bypass it, not me) and instead head to the Chinese Garden of Friendship. It was well worth a visit. Although we only had an hour to walk around it, we saw so much. It was so peaceful, and amazing to think that we were in the middle of the city. I'm really looking forward to going there again and would recommend it to anyone in Sydney.



From there Murray thought it would be a good idea to walk to Circular Quay, and then catch a ferry from there back to where our car was. "It's only a 15 minute walk" I can remember him say. 15 minutes my foot! What felt like hours later, we arrived at Circular Quay. I know that walking is the best way to see a city, and we did see some good stuff... but honestly... I couldn't wait to get on that Ferry again.

So across the Harbour at night we went back to the car. It was beautiful to see the Opera House and Bridge lit up in all thier glory. And Sydney's Luna Park looks wonderful coming across the water at night (if not a little scary). Still wanting to fit in one extra activity for the day we headed out for a drive to Manly to go the Manly Fish Markets for dinner. What's that you say? But Sherry can't eat fish? Yes I know. So I ordered the single non-fish option on the menu... which had clearly been cooked on the same grill as fish, because it was very fishy chicken. But Murray and Mary said it was excellent. And judging by how crowded the place was, and the line out the door, it must be a pretty good place to go for Fish.

I might leave it at that for now, and go and check on my Pear and Raspberry bread. Will continue with our Mothers Day Weekend Extraveganza later on.

The Rocks - Sydney

Today we spent a lovely day at The Rocks in Sydney. It was amazing that there is so much to do just 5 minutes from our house. Yes - thats right, in 5 minutes we'd left home and got a park at The Rocks.

First on the agenda was lunch, because Mr Murray was hungry - and boy did he eat! We had a great lunch at this great Italian restaurant just near the market called Caminetto. We had this great little table right up the back of the courtyard - it was hard to believe that we were in one of Sydney's busiest little spots. Its a place that we'll definetly be going back for. Murray especially enjoyed the "Sizzling Oysters on the Rocks" served with garlic, tomato, shallots, chilli and mushroom - all things he loves. As you can see by this pic, he loved the pizza too!



We walked and browsed through all the market stalls, taste testing, touching, smelling, looking at everything as we went along. Its a spot that I'll be definetly taking Mum when she finally comes up and visits me.



After having a good walk about we went down to where you can get a spectacular view of the Harbour Bridge. I thought it would be packed down there, but amazingly, I think due to the overcast weather, we were amoungst the few people there.





From there we walked down to Circular Quay for a desperately needed coffee. We sat outside and had a great view of the bridge and the Opera House.



With all the Ferries and Jetboats about, I think that we are now inspired to make that one of the next things to tick off our list. In addition to the museum at Circular Quay, and about a million other things. I'd also like to find if there is still a "Leftorium" at The Rocks for when Mum comes up - she missed out on visiting it years ago, and has never gotten over it.

Ooo-oooo-ooo! I also found DFS Galleria - but Murray took me away before I could be swooned by all the pretty shiney things.... ooooo.... On that note - Sweet Dreams! (I'll be dreaming of little blue boxes....

xx oo xx

Our big day out!

We had a fantastic day out in Sydney today – and we are thoroughly exhausted!

As Murray has a several day conference to attend for work next week he needed to do some shopping so he could look all spiffy! So we boarded a bus (yes that’s right, Murray caught a bus!) and headed into the city! Last stop was Wynyard Station.

After a beautiful walk through a park, a look at a statue of someone we didn’t know, chasing a funny looking bird, and getting lost through a few arcades/malls, we found Pitt St Mall.

Boy oh boy (remember the show ‘Man O Man’?) did we shop! Well… I should probably say did HE shop! Now I know how he feels – following him around assuring him that no his butt doesn’t look fat in those pants, and that yes that shirt does match. But he got a new pair of shoes, 2 trousers, 1 jeans, and 2 shirts. And they all look great on him.

We also bought a new Darling Harbour to relax a while and get some dinner. And we had a great dinner at what I think will probably become “our restaurant” at Chinta Ria (The Temple of Luuuuurrrrvvve). Of course no trip to Darling Harbor would be complete without a trip to the Lindt Chocolate Café! I limited myself just to a coffee though… as I’m meeting a friend there for ‘afternoon tea’ tomorrow! Can’t wait!

So tonight we’ll sleep very very well after our big day out, but it was wonderful – we had a great day in Sydney.

Bondi Beach

We woke up to beautiful summer weather on Saturday morning. It was clearly beach weather, and being new to Sydney - there was clearly one beach that we had to visit! Bondi Beach!

It was oh so Bondi. The blue surf, the white sand, the buff lifeguards (it really is like the TV show!), the topless women, the crowded beach, the people playing beach tennis/rubgy/cricket, the surfers (not much of a swell though), the beach joggers, the band on the 'grassy knoll', the packed bars and cafes and of course, the bus loads of tourists!

We had a lovely walk along the beach just soaking up the sun and sand.



We had a nice lunch at a cafe along the main drag. I had a lovely goat's cheese and walnut salad, and Murray had a club sandwich. His only complaint was his usual complaint - it wasn't big enough!

It was everything I imagined, and with about 1 in 3 women topless it was much more than Murray had imagined! It was a great day - silly us though! We didn't pack our toggs! So next perfect summer day guess where we'll be!