Day 34 - February 6, 2025 - Thursday - Sydney Australia

We finished our first day in Sidney with a beautiful skyline view from our veranda.

 Then we woke to another beautiful sunrise view of the skyline.

I mentioned yesterday that Viking arranged for water shuttles to take us to the Circular Harbor.  Here is one heading out.

Today we had a 5 hour tour titled "Sydney Harbour, the Opera House & Bondi Beach"   We had to meet outside the terminal building at 8:15.  We were the first to arrive and our coach was waiting.

There were only 20 on our tour which was nice.  Any more than that can become cumbersome.

This Geo Tracker screenshot shows the route we took.  I recorded just under 30 miles total.

This photo is one I failed to include in yesterday's post of our walk to the Zoo.  This is the movie made famous "Matrix Fountain", officially named the Lloyd Rees Fountain.  You may remember Neo (Keanu Reeves) was distracted by the woman in the red dress.  It also was featured in the movie Superman Returns, several years later.

Our guide Jo was a small woman who was very engaging, entertaining and informative.  Our drive took us through most of the downtown area and then many of the outlying neighborhoods.  Unfortunately for me, there were not many photo stops and thru the heavily tinted windows, only a few photos were useable.

This is a different view of Sydney from one of the farther bays.

We eventually arrived at Bondi Beach where we were given about an hour to wander around and use the facilities and get refreshments.

Bondi Beach is the most iconic beach in Australia.  It is also the most well known of Sydney's over 100 public beaches.  Our guide, Jo, said older residents and families usually took "their little kit to quieter beaches for a barbi".  Bondi Beach was more for younger people and surfers.  The surf and tides can be quite dangerous.

Jo's also said that Bondi Beach was know locally as "Bunn"di beach.  The photos below will explain that name!

By the way, I wasn't stalking these ladies, these crops were from my beach frames I took from the paved walkway 100 plus yards away!  It's just they were everywhere you looked.  Thus the moniker "Bunndi Beach".

After visiting Bondi Beach, we returned to the city for our Sydney Opera House tour.  Although on previous trips we have walked all around the building and admired and photographed it from the water, we have never had the opportunity to enter the building.

As we entered the underground reception area, I could see the Cunard Line's Queen Elizabeth.  It was docked at the Circular Harbor.  I guess cruise ships do still dock here.  Jo told me that usually ships which were too large to sail under the Sydney Bridge were docked in the Harbor.  It is certainly more convenient than the White Harbor Cruise Terminal.  Our dinner waiter, Aqil, told us he was her in 2019 and what is now a very nice and modern terminal building at White Harbor was just an open covered large shed.  It also looks like there are plans for more expansion in the future so I expect this will be the main Cruise Terminal for Sydney.

 The Opera House is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings, and a masterpiece of 20th-century architecture.

Just a few of the many fascinating facts about the Sydney Opera House:

The original cost estimate to build Sydney Opera House was $7 million. The final cost was $102 million and it was largely paid for by a State Lottery.

233 designs were submitted for the Opera House international design competition held in 1956. Jørn Utzon from Denmark was announced the winner, receiving ₤5000 for his design.

Construction was expected to take four years. It took 14 years. Work commenced in 1959 and involved 10,000 construction workers.

There are more than 1 million roof tiles covering approximately 1.62 hectares sitting over the structure. They were made in Sweden.

When the Sydney Symphony Orchestra is on stage in the Concert Hall, the temperature must be 72.5 degrees to ensure the instruments stay in tune. 

The Opera House hosts about 40 events daily!  Everything from birthday parties, wedding, plays, boxing matches and even Arnold Schwarzenegger (former actor and Governor of California) won his final Mr. Olympia body building title in 1980 in the Concert Hall.

From Wikipedia - The facility features a modern expressionist design, with a series of large precast concrete "shells", each composed of sections of a sphere of 246 ft 8.6 in radius, forming the roofs of the structure, set on a monumental podium. The building covers 4.4 acres of land and is 600 ft long and 394 ft wide at its widest point. It is supported on 588 concrete piers sunk as much as 82 ft below sea level. The highest roof point is 220 feet above sea-level which is the same height as that of a 22-story building. The roof is made of 2,194 pre-cast concrete sections, which weigh up to 15 tons each.

The Concert Hall can seat 2,679 persons.  The Sydney Opera House Grand Organ is the world's largest mechanical tracker-action pipe organ with 10,244 pipes.

The Joan Sutherland Theater can seat 1,507.  (this photo was taken on the sly, photography was prohibited because there was a set on stage, the Barber of Seville).  An interesting note, these huge sets may be easily changed by lifting and sliding.  In fact they had two different play being performed on the same day.

The beautiful, specially made windows were cast in France.  This is looking down thru some of the 45 degree angle glass.  There is over 71,000 square feet of glass in the windows.

It's not obvious from a distance, but the tiles which cover the Opera House are not all white.  The white tiles have a smooth surface and the cream tiles have a rougher surface.

The many, many steps to the Opera House - and there are no hand rails.  Jo said Queen Elizabeth stopped attending due to the difficulty of access.  Once inside there are some escalators, but it is still mostly stairs.

We had a very good day today.  After returning to the ship we just relaxed until dinner, had an after dinner drink in the Explorer Lounge, set our clocks back another hour and retired!

We have a sea day on Friday to recover and then we port north of Brisbane at Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast.