Life takes truly bizarre turns sometimes. I never thought I’d see the Sydney Opera House once in my lifetime, let alone twice within a matter of months. And yet tonight, there I was, watching the sunset paint its famous sails a rich shade of gold. For all the difficulties a gypsy life sometimes presents, it also definitely comes with it’s perks.
I really do love Sydney. Last time we were here I was on IPM duty, which meant I was granted just enough time to see the Opera House and one tiny little corner of the botanical gardens before I had to running back to the ship. This time I was able to avoid that (we set the IPM schedule very early in the cruise, and I was lucky enough not to end up with Sydney this time), and was able to spend most of the day exploring The Rocks (Sydney’s Historical district), and sitting on the docks of Circle Quay just watching the people and the multitudes of birds. And, of course, staring – probably as if hypnotized – at the Southern Swan.
The Southern Swan is the three masted tallship that sails out of Sydney Harbour. Naturally we were here on a Tuesday, which is the only day she doesn’t sail, so there she was, tied up to Campbell’s Cove dock, bobbing up and down on the waves, where I couldn’t reach her. None-the-less it was soothing to be around a real ship after so long on what is essentially a floating hotel. I love my floating home, I do, but cruise ships are – by nature of the fact that they have so many people on them to take care of – very sterile, and because they’re so big, they sometimes lack emotion. Tall ships…different story, they smell of tar and varnish and fresh air, and they speak their own language. In some ways, I needed a real ship today….
It was a nice day. The sun was beating down enough that you didn’t have to wear a jacket, but not so much that it was uncomfortable, and there’s so much to see in Sydney that it’s honestly very difficult to get bored. I’ve already started making plans for what I’m going to do next time I’m here – which will be February, and I think it will include a sail on the Southern Swan, and possibly a production of the Magic Flute at the Opera House.
But being me of course, I can’t go anywhere without doing something out of the ordinary. So when I came across the entry in one of our guide books that listed The Rocks Ghost Tours, I jumped at it. Considering what I do for a living back home, no one will be surprised by this…however, any tour worth its salt deserves its own write up, so I’ll leave the details of my hike through and around the oldest neighborhood in Sydney for another time…
It was well after dark by the time I got back to the ship. Which presented me with the need for a whirl-wind change, because there was something else I’d promised to do, and I was already later than I’d intended.
Twice this cruise Stryker has gotten permission to move the piano bar outside – to set it up on the aft deck and run the program by decklight and candlelight instead of being confined to the stuffy tiny indoor lounge. It doesn’t happen often, and the last one was actually cancelled due to a programming error. He invited me to sing with him tonight ages ago, and I almost didn’t make it, and when I got there, I almost decided against it, but then I realized that he’d had the piano set up so that the opera house was in the background – and the Sydney harbor bridge was in front of you as you stood on the make-shift stage.
That’s not an opportunity you pass up.
Definitely a magical end to a lovely day off…
You are so much more than “your resume”
Did the birds,Seagulls, in Sydney harbour go, “Mine, mine, mine…. mine?”