Sydney on a Shoestring

For my last day in Sydney, I decided to pull out all the stops, especially since I managed to sell my car and actually have some cash now. First I took the train downtown then grabbed a connecting bus down to Bondi beach. After a yummy lunch at the shore, I headed back into town and climbed the stairs to the top of the Pylon Lookout on the harbour bridge. You can also do a bridge climb to the top of the steel arch, but the price difference was $9.50 versus $210 for an extra 30m of height. Not a tough call there. To finish off the day I took a ferry out of Circular Quay to Manley on the north-west end of the harbour. The sunset on the opera house with the thumbnail moon overhead was pretty damn sweet and probably my favourite in Sydney. I don't understand folks who spend gobs of money on city tours. For $17 I got a transit pass that covered any train, bus, or ferry in Sydney and had a blast doing it. Including my bridge lookout and lunch, I spent a grand total of $36.50 to see a big chunk of the city- I have a feeling that a day tour would cost a teensy bit more than that.

I think I was able to enjoy myself so much today because I finally have a bit of my life organized for once. Tomorrow I am off to Cairns for a week where I will take a course to get my open water scuba diving certification. I figured, where better to learn to dive than the Great Barrier Reef, hey? The 27 degree weather will be a nice touch as well as autumn is creeping into the southern states and it would be nice to reclaim some of my tan- it disappeared over the last month during all the rain in New Zealand. Next Friday I fly into Melbourne for the weekend to finish off my trip, then on Monday June 8th, I return to the Great White North. Thanks to the beauty of time zones, I will leave Melbourne and arrive in Los Angeles at exactly the same time (10:50)- talk about a short cut! Then it's a mere 3 hour layover until I get on a Westjet direct to good old Edmonton. I don't know what I'm going to do when there are beavers on the nickels again. I haven't been in Canada since November 1, 2008; maybe I'll get culture shock. I'm sure a double-double and a honey crueller from Timmy's will fix me right up though.

-A.