Sydney and Canberra

Sydney was a fantastic city. We spent our second day there walking around the tourist areas of central Sydney. Gave ourselves a good workout! We visited St. Mary's Cathedral, Hyde Park (including a giant outdoor chess board), and Sydney Tower. We stopped for lunch at Market City in Chinatown, wandered around Darling Harbour, explored the Rocks, and finished off at Circular Quay.

My favourite area was the Rocks, which is the oldest part of Sydney. It's full of old brick buildings, many reminicient of old factories, and tiny lanes and alleys. It's really wonderful to see the old, eurpoean-looking bit of town in front of a backdrop of modern sky-scrapers. A fantastic contrast!

In the evening, we made our way (lugging our packs) to our first Servas homestay. We stayed 2 nights with Joyce Martin, a university prof. who teaches Sociology and Communications. She lives in a little bungalow in the suburb of North Ryde. It took about 30 minutes to get to her place from central Sydney. Joyce is a really wonderful lady and it was a nice change to stay in someone's home. She made us feel very welcome and comfortable.

I spent my last day in Sydney running errands. Nothing too exciting.

On March 31, we made our way by bus from Sydney to Canberra. It was nice to get a chance to see the countryside. What immediately caught my attention were the vast, open spaces and the big blue sky that went on forever. It was strangely compforting to see these elements again, although there was no mistaking it for North America witht he signs informing drivers to watch out for kangaroos and koalas!

Canberra was a lovely little city, spread out in the valleys between the large hills in the area. The greater area of the city is the size of London, but with a population of only 320,000. Now that's urban sprawl! It's a completely planned city, specifically chosen to be the sight of the nation's capital. It's also known as the garden city, with good cause. It's very treed with lots of green spaces and a large, man-made lake in the center. Even the parlement building is under a hill! When approaching the city, you can't see it until you're in it because of all the trees.

We stayed with Angela and David McAdam in Canberra. Angela is the daughter of Granny's very good friends, Pauline and Walter. They are lovely people, who made us feel very welcome and at home. It was like visiting old friends! We stayed with them for 3 nights. On Saturday (April 1), Angela took us around the city to see the parlement buildings and the National Gallery. The Parlement buildings are really modern, built into and under capital hill, with the idea that the people should be able to look down on their government rather than the government looking down on the people. On Sunday, we all went to the National Museum and then up to the Telstra tower, which had a fantastic view of Canberra. That evening, we went out to a Turkish resteraunt for dinner. Really tastey!

Yesturday, Corinne and I took the 8 hour bus ride from Canberra to Melbourne. We're now staying with Felicity, a friend that we met when she was visiting mutual friends in Calgary a few years ago. It's so nice to be able to visit people.

Cheers for now.