As you may recall when my family came to stay with us in July we paid a visit to Sydney. This was my first trip to Sydney and I loved the place. On day one we arrived and the Aussie and I visited the Pylon which you can read about here.
On the second day I had booked us tickets to do a walking tour of the Sydney Opera House. The tours run daily between 9am and 5pm and costs from $40 per person.
For mobility reasons me and my dad did the Access Tour and everyone else in our group did the regular tour. We had slightly different experiences but it was a great experience.
Our tour leader was a retired teacher who very clearly loved the Opera House and his job. He walked us room by room through the quite majestic building, stopping in the different theatres and telling us about the history of the construction, the architects story and about how the theatres were intended to be used and are used.
Being on the access tour also meant we got to go a bit more behind the scenes so we saw the massive lifts where they move all of the set for the various operas that run each week to swap between the shows. It must be a real feat of organisation to keep things moving and so they are in the right place at the right time.
Visually the Sydney Opera House is stunning that is for sure. Below are some photos I took.
I would 100% recommend taking the tour if you are in Sydney. We didn’t have time to do it this time, but if you do the tour you can then get discounted tickets for performances on the same date which is pretty good as the tour does inspire you to want to visit.
After a quick refuelling pit stop, the Aussie and my parents hopped on a ferry across to Manly. We had received a recommendation to visit by Naomi.
The ferry ride was a tad rocky with some quite impressive waves but was overall quite pleasant and going out and coming in we had great water side views of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge which I loved.
On our arrival we wandered down to the beach in the same direction as many of the other passengers.
The beach was lovely and complete with surfers if not a tad windy and cold!
Nonetheless the contention was that an ice cream had to be enjoyed which it was. We sat watching the world go by before hopping back on a ferry over to the Harbour.
Coming back in the sun was setting and I and everyone else rushed to the front of the boat to photograph the Bridge and Opera House in full sunset mode! I was not disappointed!!