thericechronicles: Three Australian Icons

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Three Australian Icons

Hello My Dear Great Ones,

Greetings from Down Under! I finally am living out a big dream of mine. Going to Australia has always been on my to do list. In fact its been on there since a buddy of mine went down under about 30 years ago.

Going with Celia, who has been to Australia numerous times, and has several friends and relatives here makes the trip much more special. Staying with some real Aussies and trying to understand their version of English has been interesting to say the least.

Celia and I will spend the first week of our four week stay here in OZ in Sydney, catching the sights and going to the Hillsongs conference. Then we will be going west to Orange, and then south to Canberra and Melbourne. Later we head north to The Great Barrier Reef.

Since it is winter here in Australia it is a tad chilly. Plus 6 in the morning, up to plus 20ish or so, then down to plus 5 at night. So Alberta SUMMER weather. Ouch. The weather is a pleasant respite from the greenhouse that is Hong Kong. The skies are clear and blue. Lovely. Only thing is that sunset is around 4:30 pm and it is dark by 5:00 pm. That is kind of weird.

Anyway here are three Australian icons that we visited in Sydney:

Manly Beach. Despite the rather chilly weather, plus 16, there were seemingly hundreds of surfers riding the waves.

From Manly beach you can take a ferry to downtown Sydney where two great Australian icons are located. The Sydney Opera House (Built in 1973) and the Sydney Harbour Bridge(built in 1932 and still well used.)

The "sails," of the Opera House are thousands of white panels stuck together.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge was built in 1932 as a way to stimulate the economy during the Depression. It is well used. Busses, trains, cars people are on it constantly. You can climb to the top on a guided tour. It will cost you a few hundred dollars Australian (crazy) to do this, but there are hundreds of people every day doing this.