As we pull out of Circular Quay, we get great views of the bridge and opera house, including closeups of vast expanses of smoky brown glass encased in linoleum. But notwithstanding the Opera House it's still one of the most beautiful boat trips you can take. After leaving the Quay, the ferry chugs by quirky Fort Denison in the middle of the harbour. Overcautious British had it built around 1850 during the Crimean War to protect Sydney from the possibility that the Russians would somehow make it all the way down to Sydney. Needless to say the fort was never used, but nowadays it houses a nice little cafe.

You see the photo with the office buildings? That's the CBD, the central business district. In front of the buildings is Circular Quay, the ferry terminal, which you can see up close in the photo with the ferries and the Harbour Bridge as a backdrop. The left side of Circular Quay has a few apartment buildings, ending in the Sydney Opera House, and behind that is the Domain and Royal Botanical Gardens, which you saw in the previous post. And the right side of Circular Quay is the Rocks, which we just left. Circular Quay is, as you can see, not circular, and pronounced funnily (like Key). It's also ground zero of tourist Sydney, with the bridge, opera house and a ferry ride being the only must do things in Sydney. But it's also the main commuter center for the city, since all the ferries and the train terminate here.



Just between us, I think the Opera House is very overrated. From a distance, such as in Somchai's beautiful photo, it looks very avant-garde and striking, but up close it's very clearly a product of its decade, the seventies. I really like the design, but the materials, concrete and brown tinted glass, and the horrible tiles covering the place which look like kitchen linoleum, really need a makeover.

The park occupies two points with a broad bay in between. The famous Opera House occupies the western point, with the much less famous Government House nearby. Pictured above, it was the home of the governors of New South Wales (of which Sydney is the capital). It's now open to the public for tours, which are a great idea because there's not much that's tour-worthy in Sydney. The other point is called Mrs. Macquarie's Point. Mrs. Macquarie was the wife of Sydney's most famous governor, who bequeathed his name to about sixty percent of all things nameable in Sydney. The governor's wife had a chair carved into the rock on this point, where she used to watch the boats from England sailing into the harbor. The chair is still a tourist attraction, although most people come for the quintessential Sydney photo of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

By the way, these photos come from later trips, when we finally have a digital camera (except for the schoolkids one, which is an internet ripoff). As you can see, the photos are a million times better quality, and they obviously are much easier blogwise, since I'm still taking old photos out of photo albums and scanning them, which is really slow. It also ruins the pics. Anyway, I think we have one more trip after Sydney before we make the digital switch, and I'm so excited! (Really, not sarcastically)