On to Sydney ...

On the morning of April 7th we turned in our rented car and boarded our flight to Sydney, Nancy’s much-anticipated destination. An airport shuttle took us to our downtown B&B in the “Rocks” area of the city, with just about a 15-minute walk from the Opera House. Walking to the box office right away to pick up our concert tickets for the next night, we learned that a few tickets had become available just that morning for “Madam Butterfly,” put on that night by the Sydney Ballet Theatre. We decided that we couldn’t pass up the opportunity, so got to see a performance in each of the separate theatres on successive nights. Weather in Sydney was absolutely gorgeous—with blue skies and temperatures in the mid to high 70’s. We visited “Government House,” used these days mostly for ceremonial purposes, walked through the Botanical Garden, and took a ferry to Manly Beach where I couldn’t resist taking off my shoes and socks and wading in the surf. A climb up inside one of the towers on the Sydney Harbor Bridge gave us perfect views of the city and the entire harbor area and proved to be one of the chief highlights of our whole trip. (And then, of course, there was the bridge at night!) We also enjoyed walking through the New South Wales Art Museum where Nancy took a fancy to a unique sculpture!

Our Australia trip concluded with an early evening flight from Sydney to the Gold Coast where we’d booked a motel close to the airport to facilitate our morning flight back to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, April 10th, just in time for Nancy to return to work on Monday morning. – rw