Sunday, November 18 - Leaving the Tropics

We packed up our luggage and Trish and Andrew served us an early breakfast with the usual platter of wonderful tropical fruits - I managed to eat all the mangosteens and most of the lychees as they are So good! We left Red Mill House at 8 and drove south through Mossman, Port Douglas, to Cairns Airport. We left Frances off at the Domestic pick up area where she met a friend from Cairns where she is to stay for a few more days before returning to Brisbane.

We boarded a Qantas 767 and flew off to Sydney, watching reefs and sand bars in the turquoise water off Queensland, before heading inland. We had a good lunch of chili with corn bread and landed in Sydney at 4 pm. It was

partly cloudy with a stiff wind and after the heat and humidity of northern QLD, felt quite chilly.

View from our room

 

We grabbed a taxi downtown and soon pulled up to the Sydney Harbour Marriott where Miss Hamlin had reserved two rooms on her infinite supply of Marriott points. Due to her elite status we were upgraded to a room on the 19^th floor with an Opera House view, while Hil got a suite on the 23^rd floor with an equally great view.

We set off to explore the harbor area. We had visited Sydney seven years ago, but this is Hil’s first visit and she was impressed with the spectacular views of water, ferries, the huge bridge and the Opera House. Being Sunday afternoon, everything was crowded with multiple concerts, wine tasting and other events taking place. We walked over to the Botanic Garden and returned to the hotel to figure out where to eat dinner. The concierge suggested an Italian restaurant, Eastbank, near the Opera House, so we walked there again and had a good dinner of parsnip soup and gnocchis with lamb ragu sauce among other tasty dishes. We returned to Hil’s suite where the hotel had sent up a bottle of Chardonnay, brie cheese, crackers and dried fruit which we had for dessert while planning out our next couple of days.