Sydney Extension
We left Queenstown on a beautiful, snowy morning; that made
it so difficult to leave! Because of the
weather, our flight was delayed, so our connection in Aukland was held as
several of us were connecting. We had no time to explore the Aukland airport as
we had to really move it in order to get on the plane. Air New Zealand was accommodating and very
friendly.
Because of our delayed flight, our arrival in Sydney was
much later than we had expected.
Regardless, we checked in to the Radisson and headed out on our
adventure. We took the ferry to
Manly. It was dark when we got there,
but being on an Australian beach is a must even in the dark. We stood for a few moments on the sand, and
then proceeded to a cute, little Italian restaurant for dinner. After sitting and receiving no service and
looking around to see others not being served, we quietly got up and made our
get away. We ended up at another Italian
restaurant and had a delicious dinner.
Another ferry ride back to the hotel, being quite tired, we retired
knowing we had to get up early the next morning to catch our flight back to
Manila.
Arriving at the airport, we were told that I could not go
back to Manila. Since my purse had been
stolen earlier in Manila, I had gotten an emergency passport good for one
year. I had planned to get it replaced
when I got back to the States in October.
I didn’t know that I had to have six months on my passport in order to
return to Manila, and I had missed the six month mark by one day! The
Philippine Air attendant was very nice and rebooked us on the Wednesday flight
as they do not fly to Manila on Tuesdays. We had to go to the U.S. Embassy which was
quite easy to get to, and I was able to get my emergency replacement, good for
another year, at 2:00 that afternoon.
Compared to the U.S. Embassy in Manila, this was incredibly easy and
very pleasant.
With that behind us, we had an extra day and a half to enjoy
in Sydney! We checked into the Ibis
Hotel and then just enjoyed walking around Darling Harbor. We did some shopping and rode the ferry over
to the wharf area and enjoyed a beautiful sunset sitting by the harbor with a
refreshing beverage. That evening we had
a great dinner and a pleasant walk back to our hotel.
The next morning, we rode the ferry to Watson’s
Bay. What a quaint little town! We walked the scenic trail and met a really
nice gentleman who gave us some history of the area. We had a delicious lunch of fish and chips at
Doyles and then decided that we wanted to see Manly during the day, so we
hopped on a ferry and headed to Manly.
We took a nice walk on the beach and just enjoyed the evening. To knock the chill out of our systems we got
hot chocolate to accompany our ferry ride back to Darling Harbor. The ride was spectacular as the sun was going
down.
Wednesday morning, we headed to the airport once again and
were able to board as planned. All in all
the entire trip was great, and if we had to be detained somewhere, Sydney was
the place to be!
