The news came as a shock to many. We would not be at a dock
for our visit to Sydney, Australia. It was explained that Cunard’s Queen
Elizabeth bumped us from our spot. Now there was lots of scuttlebutt about why
we were bumped. Cunard had paid for the extension of the dock thereby giving it
priority was a favorite tidbit to circulate. The confusing part was that both
cruise lines, I’m sure, had their itineraries planned at least a year in
advance and would have put in for dock space. Bumped? I don’t know.
We were also told that we should be up early for the sail-in
to the harbor which was to happen at 7. We were up at 6:30 and found that we
were already anchored in our spot. The bright side: we got to see the sun come
up and enhance the beauty of the Sydney Harbor. I for one was glad we hadn’t
docked. Our view was much nicer than it would have been from the dock.
Large local tenders (tour boats) were on their way to begin
ferrying passengers back and forth to our tender drop off spot under the bridge
and about ten minutes walking distance from Circular Quay. The tenders were
nice and scheduled every half hour. We finished our breakfast-with-a-view and got
in line for our face-to-face immigration meeting. We’ve been involved with
these before. Once it went well. Once it didn’t and the line wound around the
whole deck of the ship. This one was somewhere in between the two. While the
line got long when internet didn’t work well, it went quickly once they got it
together.
Our passports and visas accepted, no Ebola problems (we
haven’t been to Africa yet) and nothing to declare, we returned to our room and
grabbed our gear. We were headed for the Blue Mountains and needed as early a
start as possible.
After a brisk walk to the transportation terminal in
Circular Quay, we bought our ticket to Katoomba and received our instructions
on where to change trains. We’d done this before but somehow it seemed a little
more confusing this time. Once on the train to Katoomba though, we relaxed and
enjoyed the two hour ride and the changing scenery out the window. Plus there
was internet on the train!
The Explorer Bus that is a hop on hop off for the area was
right around the corner from the train depot and bus ticket place. We needed to
hop on the first one that came along because there would be an hour gap of time
for the drivers’ lunch if we didn’t but we were hungry too. (Cruise passengers
get used to little time lapse between meals.) We happened upon a Subway and
grabbed a quick sandwich, wolfed it down and ran across the street in enough
time to catch our bus.
We got off at one stop in the park and walked to another to
see the cable car and sky train (funicular) that gives you a spectacular view.
We’d done the sky train before and had no stomach for the cable car but it was
fun to watch others.
As we waited for the bus, we studied our map and decided we
could do the rim walk. Once we found our way to the right trail we began what
turned out to be a three hour walk, a little longer than we’d planned on but
there were some ups and downs to the trail. The downs aren’t bad but as the saying
goes when we hike, what goes down must come up. The ups are a little harder.
We finally made it around to Echo Park where the famous
Three Sisters landmark is and had enough time for pictures before meeting the
bus. It was an hour later than we planned but there was still time to make it
back to the ship. It just meant that there wouldn’t be time for dinner on shore
like we planned—mainly because we needed showers before we could be presentable
in a restaurant and Bob didn’t want to go fast food again when I suggested
Hungry Jack’s (Australia’s version of Burger King).
Still, by the time we made it back on board, our dinner
seating time had passed. We showered quickly and headed for a specialty
restaurant called Tastes on Deck 12. Tastes has lots of ala carte dishes and is
sort of like Spanish tapas. We had no reservation and hoped we could get in. It
was more crowded than we counted on but the charming maitre’d managed to find
room for us after a short wait. Soon we were dining on our favorite lamb kebobs,
salad, and a variety of other dishes and of course what has become my favorite
dessert, a trifle that resembles bananas foster.
Our evening ended with a stroll around the deck and my
camera set up on a tripod to take pictures of the opera house and bridge at
night before we left for the open seas again. There would be a day at sea
before getting into Melbourne and what a day it would be!
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