Australia-Great Barrier Reef 2012

Sydney Opera House from our room in The Four Seasons Hotel downtown Sydney

Sydney Harbor view ferry boat harbor the Circular Quay is the hub of the network, providing access to 37 other wharves ranging from Manly at the northern end of Sydney Harbor through to Eastern and Lower North Shore suburbs, suburbs adjacent to the Parramatta River, the Balmain peninsula and Darling Harbor.

Satellite photo of Sydney showing only a part of the harbor Right end of red line is Circular Quay and faint blue dashed lines are ferry routes that radiate out from it. Yellow or gold lines are freeways.

Street facing Circular Quay at left. Lots of pedestrian traffic at 8-9 and 5PM of people going to work. Very bustling city with a lot of high rise buildings in area and hotels. Our ship was immediately to left about 400 yards down. Sydney is very clean, very bustling, very cosmopolitan, and more beautiful than San Francisco. We saw no slums, and we took a bus ride on a loop from Circular Quay around north and back in a circle that was one price for 24 hours, so you could tour a lot of the downtown city by getting on and off at will.

Upper deck of one bus on the city tour loop.

Very clean downtown area. Note how they drive on the wrong side, although they would say it is the correct side since the British invented lanes.

One of the ferries heading out from along the finger of land on which the Opera House sits. Sydney Harbour Bridge in foreground.

Sydeney Harbour Bridge on Opera House causway

Opera House across from bridge

Interior of Sydney Opera House Lobby

Other side of Sydney Opera House penensula

Sydney Opera House. Surface is all tiles set on poured concrete formed shape

Vital records building, i.e., "county recorder" in Sydney. Births, marriages, and death records: "Hatch 'em, Match 'em, Dispatch 'em" in Australian lingo.

Sydney Hyde Park, (40-acre) park in the central business district of Sydney, New South Wales

Hyde Park, the oldest park in Sydney. St. Andrew's Cathedral in background

Hyde Park, one of many flower beds

Sydney Tower, tallest free standing in Austalia rising out of Westfield Dept Store. Next ten pictures from it.

View of Sydney downtown and bridge and harbor approximately south from Sydney Tower

Southwest approximately from Sydney Tower

Southwest approximately from Sydney Tower

Hyde Park and St. Andrews Cathedral approximately west from Sydney Tower. We were there in November 2012, their spring, and they complained about how dry it had been so far in the spring. Hatch 'em, Match 'em, Dispatch 'em building immediately to left of St. Andrews, and beside it old barracks Hyde Park Barracks is a brick building and compound designed by convict architect Francis Greenway between 1818–19; originally built at the head of Macquarie Street (1819) to house convict men and boys. Australia was originally a penal colony exclusively, you recall, a fact of which the present residents are intensely proud.

Further view of Harbor. Barracks, Hatch 'em, and St Andrews in foreground.

Northwest of Hyde Park from Sydney Tower. Lower Right corner is the ANZAC War Memorial, completed in 1934, is the main commemorative military monument of Sydney, Australia honoring the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp of WW I

Hyde Park north end from fountain and including ANZAC Memorial.

More of Harbor from Tower

And more. Like I said, I think Sydney is more beautiful than San Francisco. Sorry about the reflection of the Tower windows.

Our Cruise Ship Holland American Lines Oosterdam tied up the day before out boarding. Sydney Opera House in distance.

Circular Quay from near ship

We're on board, awaiting departure, and awaiting our luggage, so no use going to our stateroom. Besides we wanted to be able to turn around. Some of the ferries were real fancy

Weighing anchor and on our way backing out under our own power with transverse screws to steer. Will make reverse turn backwards toward bridge then reverse direction to head away from bridge. No tugs required.

turned nearly in correct direction with Bridge behind us and heading out into Harbor.

Well past Opera House

The trip out of the Harbor took about an hour. It is really big. First Port of Call was Brisbane where we went to this private commercial zoo.

Koala in Gum (eucalyptus) tree

Dingo

Laughing Kookaburra. Well the sign is in focus. I have other pics in focus, but don't want to upload all 700

Tasmanian Devil

Tasmanian Devil

Koala

Koala

You can read

Golden Brushtail Possum

Very ugly lizard's sister

Kangaroo, probably giant red"s?

Just starting his hop

An even bigger and nearly as ugly lizard about 24" long

Croc

Perentie Monitor, Austgralia's largest lizard can grow up to 2.5 meters (8 ft 2 in) in length although the average length is around 1.75 to 2 meters. This one was nearly 6 feet nose to tip of tail.