Australia - Last Day, Sydney

I flew down to Sydney the day before I had to leave and spent the night there. I stayed in the Mercantile Hotel in the Rocks. It was a short walk from the Central Quay train station (pronounced "key", which is weird because they don't pronounced queen as "keen") and steps away from the Sydney Harbor Bridge and right across the bay from the Opera House. The hotel was right over a pub & reminded me of the hotels in Ireland, which probably makes sense since it was an Irish pub.

I checked in and then walked up to the the bridge to do the bridge climb. It was neat & there were some great views, but I can't say it was worth the cost. You aren't allowed to take your own cameras with you, which I understand since they might get dropped on the bridge & then smash into some car below. what I don't understand is the price gouging for purchasing the photos taken by the guide during the bridge climb. $25 for the first print & $10 for each print after that. It's $30 to have the first print put on CD & $10 for each print put on the CD after that. How exactly does that make sense?

Anyway, the bridge climb did include a free pass to the bridge pylon ($10 normally) so I went up there. The views were pretty much the same, just from a lower angle. I was going to take a harbor cruise as well, but I didn't make it to the pier in time. I walked around the Rocks for a while. Thankfully there are a lot of direction signs because it would be very easy to get lost in all the alleys & stairways in between all the buildings. After that, I went back to the hotel, had dinner & pretty much crashed until I had to leave the next morning. Which was very, very sad.

Now I'm back in Alaska & for some reason am surprised each time I see snow.

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