Weekend in Sydney – Day 1

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The day of my long planned trip had arrived. M knew we were going somewhere, but where and how we were going to get there was still a mystery. She had asked what to pack, I suggested for nice weather as that’s what the forecast was showing.

We headed off, as it turns out towards Melbourne airport. After parking and getting dropped at the terminal M was asking where we were going. Of course I’d checked in online, and we only had carry on luggage so we didn’t have to queue up anywhere. We headed through security and lurked around the gates until the flight was called. Sydney! But why?

After a short and uneventful flight we arrived in sunny Sydney. Heading for Hertz (my second surprise) I signed my life away for a Mini Cooper S.

M was very excited! She’d always wanted one, had never driven one, never even been in one, and now we had one for all of 36 hours.

Getting mildly lost on the way to the Harbour bridge we got familiar with the zoomy Mini. I lived in Sydney for three years back in the 90s, but my knowledge of anything past Haymarket was severely lacking. We found and crossed the bridge and headed towards the hotel in North Sydney to collect the tickets to the next surprise. We then continued towards Mosman. I’d told M about a great deli (Avenue Road Providores) that used to be there.

They had the best meat pies I’d ever tasted and according to Google they still existed. We arrived, purchased said pies. Yes! They were still the same, and the same staff/owners. Delicious.

We hopped back in the car and headed for surprise number three. As we rounded the corner and the Taronga Zoo sign came into view, M let out a squeal that probably damaged my hearing and startled dogs for miles around.

We parked and spent a great afternoon exploring the zoo.

Sydney CBD in the background.
After the zoo we decided another pie was called for. Still delicious.
We then headed to the hotel to drop off our bags and freshen up a bit. Then M suggested heading for May Gibbs house in Neutral bay.
Unfortunately it was just closing as we arrived. So we had a very quick look around the gardens before 
heading for a quick couple of geocaches, just to log some caches in Sydney. Then we a bit of a look around the North Sydney area to see what had changed.
Opera house from North Sydney
Later in the afternoon we drove down to Balmoral beach for a nice walk. Quite a busy afternoon for a breezy spring day.
Heading back towards Crows Nest we began the search for dinner. I had a memory of a tiny little restaurant tucked away off the main roads. A bit of hunting around to get my bearings and I found where it had been, damn. Having failed at that we wandered around until we found a nice looking Thai restaurant to eat at.  

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