Australia Things to Do Tips by filipdebont

As I am a theatre lover, the first thing I wanted to see was the Sydney Opera House.

What a great building. It really looks amazing with it big sail-like roofs.

I also made a so called tour of the House, this a guided tour inside the building, depending on the activities which are busy at that moment in the Opera Hose, and you visit different halls and the concert halls. We visited the big Concert Hall, and big is the word, as there is room for almost 2.700 spectators. We could not visit the Opera theatre as there was an Opera production going on - In the foyer just in front of the Opera Theatre we could see a bit of the Opera at the big screens - Oh by the way they were playing Lakme, it looked very colourful).

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Phone: +61 2 9250 7111
Address: Bennelong Point
Website: http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/
Other Contact: infodesk@sydneyoperahouse.com

The second day that I was in Sydney, I wanted to see the Opera House from the inside, so a booked a guided tour : The Tour of the House.

You can buy your ticket in the Box office foyer or on the Lower Concourse, where you also can buy some Opera House souvenirs.

The tour lasted about one hour; the guided told us the story of design competition, about the winning architect (Jorn Utzon from Denmark).

We visited several halls, like the Utzon Hall, a small reception hall which is now also used for smaller musical performances. Then we walked up the stairs 9lots of stairs) in order to enter the big Concert hall. This was really Wow, what an amazing hall, in fact it is the largest hall of the complex, there are 2679 seats. Above the forestage there are donut shaped objects, before the concert these donuts give a better reflection for the musical sounds towards the musicians.

We could not visit the Opera Theatre (capacity of 1547) as they were playing the Opera Lakme at that time.

To me it was a great experience to see this fantastic cultural building from the inside, next time I want to book a ticket and see a performance in one of these great halls.

Booking information
Departs: Daily, every 30 mins between 9am and 5pm

Fee:
- Adults: $26 (Online: $23)
- Concession: $16 (Aust. seniors & pensioners, students, and children 16 & under)

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Phone: +61 2 9250 7111
Address: Bennelong point
Website: http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/

Another landmark in Sydney is the Harbour Bridge.

Of course this bridge is also well known because of its New Years Eve firework.

It is really impressive when you are crossing the water towards the other side; the bridge has a length of 503 metres. The bridge has 8 road lanes, 2 railway tracks, a bicycle way and a foot path.

It is also possible to do the famous Bridge Climb. It must be a great experience to stand on top of the bridge.

I did not do the Bridge Climb because the weather was very bad (rain, rain, rain) and also the price was too high - 185 AUS dollars (= 110 Euros).

I believe that paying 110 Euros to climb a bridge is too much - It felled as a tourist rip off, that is also the reason why I have put the Bridge Climb under the Chapter Tourist Traps.

At first more then 17 people of our group (of 20) wanted to climb the bridge, but afterwards only 3 did it.

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Directions: Near the quarter : The Rocks
Website: http://www.sydney.com.au/bridge.html

If you have time you should stroll through Sydney's Botanical Gardens, a green oasis in the busy city centre.

There are different entrance gates, we entered via the Woolloomooloo gate (yes I know that are a lot of o's), and then walked through the park in order to leave it at the rear side of the Opera house.

At the entrance there are maps of the garden, so you can't get lost.

There are plenty of rare plants in this garden, like the Wollemi Pine, a kind of living dinosaur tree, which is found in the Bleu Mountains.

You can also see plenty of flying foxes hanging in the trees. And if you are lucky you can see many white cockatoos.

And this is a completely different park then every park I visited before because :

Here one is encouraged to walk on the grass, they also invite you to hug the trees (climbing the trees is prohibited), to smell the roses, to talk to the birds and to picnic on the lawns.

Oh yes, there is no entrance fee.

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Address: city centre
Directions: near the Opera House

During our touristy walk, the first day, guided by our bus driver, we walked through the Botanical Gardens. And as we arrived near the Palm Grove Centre, we noticed several black things hanging in the trees.

But soon, as we gat closer, we could see that it were flying foxes, these big bats are family to the smaller fruit bats. From time to time, we did see them flying from one tree to another (sorry they were to fast to make descent picture.

Near the Garden shop at the Palm Grove centre there was an educational stand were you could learn more on this animals.

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Address: Bennelong Point
Directions: In the middle of the Botanical Gardens

Of course we did see a lot of cockatoos during our Australia roundtrip, but the first encounter with these beautiful birds was in the Botanical garden in Sydney.

As I was walking around in the Botanical garden, the second day, I heard a very loud sound, it sounded like a kind of parrot sound. And soon I noticed a big group of big white birds.

There must have been more then 40, the shrieking was very loud.

Despite the terrible weather at that moment, it still was a unique moment to make some pictures.

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Address: Bennelong point

When you are walking from the Opera House via Circular Quay, in the direction of the Harbour Bridge, you should not miss The Rocks.

This is a great quarter to walk through. There is still this very special, colonial atmosphere.

This is one of the oldest quarters of Sydney. So it certainly worth a small detour.

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Address: in between Circular Quay and the Harbour Bridge

Sydney also has a great skyline. Ok, I must admit that it is not that impressive in comparison with cities like Hong Kong, or New York.

We already did notice the Sydney skyline on our first morning walk through the Botanical Gardens.

Another great view is when you are standing next to the Opera House.

And do not forget to look backwards whenever you take a ferry from Circular Quay.

This skyline also looks great at night (see my nightlife tips).

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One afternoon I did take the ferry from Circular Quay towards Darling Harbour.

It was a combined ticket, two ways with the ferry, and the entry to the Sydney Aquarium was also included. This gave me the big advantage that I did not need to stand in line to buy a ticket at the Aquarium. (Price return ticket + Sydney Aquarium : 33 AUS $)

The most amazing section in this Aquarium was the underwater tunnels (The Open Ocean Oceanarium + the Seal Sanctuary), like this you could observe the big sharks and giant stingrays swimming over your head.

The Great Barrier Reef section was also pretty amazing, with all those colourful fish (at the end of my Australia trip I did see them in the open sea while I was snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef - what a great experience)

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Phone: +61 2 8251 7800
Address: Darling Harbour
Website: http://www.sydneyaquarium.com.au/

On Day 5, we finally started with our roundtrip. From Sydney we did drive towards the Blue Mountains.

This region is listed as a World Heritage site. This is a great region for hiking and bird watching.

A short drive (about 2 hours) brought us in the middle of the Blue Mountains region. We stopped in Katoomba, where you find Scenic World.

At Scenic World, there are different possibilities :
- The Skyway : "walk on air" on the electro-sceni glass bottom floor high above the valley.

- The Railway : the world's steepest incline passenger carrying railway.

- The Cableway : cable car whisks you to another world

- The walkway : 2.5 kilometres of elevated boardwalk, winding through the rainforest on the valley floor.

I walked down the valley and I returned via the very, very steep railway track.

The scenery was really amazing.

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Address: Violet street 1, Katoomba