On our first full day in Sydney, we took a 2 1/2 hour walking tour of the city.  We always like to do a walking tour (if available) at each city we visit to initially give us a “lay of the land”. Many cities now have “free” walking tours that thrive on tips alone.  Like Melbourne and Madrid, we had a graduate degree student guide.  They really do a good job of offering some interesting tidbits on almost all the 27 sights we visited.

Some of the highlights of the tour included The Queen Victoria Building (affectionately known as the QVB) which  was built as a monument to the long reigning monarch.  This gorgeous old building is now home to some of Sydney’s finest fashion boutiques with tunnels connecting its 2 lower floors to other retail buildings along the street.  The two massive clocks are beautiful.  One of them demonstrates the beheading of King George hourly.  Outside the building, a bronze statue of Queen Victoria’s dog speaks when you throw coins into the fountain!  We also visited inside the historic Customs House which has an incredible scale model of Sydney’s city center viewed through a glass floor.  It was quite spectacular and very detailed.  An interesting story was told about Sydney’s “Rum Hospital” which is currently a working hospital.  The original Sydney Hospital was paid for with rum sales for the builders, being allowed to import up to 60,000 gallons into the colony in the early 1800’s.  Another interesting place was the birthplace of modern Sydney called “The Rocks” which is an historic precinct right by the harbor with cobbled laneways,  cute cafés and lots of pubs.  Circle Quay is Sydney’s major harbor and was the last area we visited.  It is where all the ferry boats dock.  Despite its name, Circle Quay is actually square in shape.

After the tour and lunch, we headed over to the worlds largest steel arch bridge and one of Australia’s most well known and photographed landmarks, The Sydney Harbor Bridge.   We debated on the famous “bridge climb”; but, due to the high winds, we opted for a 2-mile round trip walk across the bridge.  Nonetheless, the views were breathtaking with lots of boating below along with great views of the Sydney Opera House.  The original estimate to build the Opera House was $7 million for a 4 year project, however, the final cost was $102 million!  Work commenced on the Opera House in 1957 and was completed in 1973.  The original Danish architect was relieved mid-stream and his plans modified.  They have determined that if  the interior was modified to his original design, today it would cost $1 billion to update it.  The Dane never saw the completed icon.

We arrived late this morning in Sydney after a very early morning departure from Auckland.  Our first experience was with our 85-year old taxi driver.  Not only did he have the largest spare tire in his trunk (we barely fit our carry-on luggage in it), but he hit every curb as we left the airport, forgot to fasten his seat belt for the longest time as the car buzzer rang and could barely communicate.  Well, he was trying  .  .  .

Although Sydney is only 10% larger than Melbourne, it feels substantially bigger.  It is probably because the high number of towers that are crammed around the various harbors.

Our lovely apartment on the “51st” floor has an absolutely fantastic view of the harbors and greater Sydney.  Nearby, at Darling Harbor, there was a Japanese cultural event this afternoon.  Not only was the area filled with traditional Japanese clothing but also some of the more eclectic Japanese outfits (“Hello Kitty”, emoji, superheroes, Samurai soldiers, etc.).   Quite an interesting walk.  Darling Harbor is very touristy but interesting nevertheless, with all the constant activity-especially on weekends.

Tonight we had a breathtaking and unexpected display of fireworks  from our deck –  just another Saturday night in Aussie Land!

After tramping around Queenstown & Lake Wakatipu on Wednesday, we decided to rent bikes on Thursday.  Our big, audacious goal was to ride to Arrowtown.  That goal was quickly squashed when the bike shop told us that this ride that we had in mind was a 64km round-trip, uphill ride.  Not being deterred, we set off to ride the trail for a few hours & turn around at a set time.

The ride was great but clearly the bicycle muscles are different from the walking muscles.  We had some downhill rides but plenty of uphill riding.  Lesley did better than David on sustaining the uphill riding – maybe spinning works?  The river was beautiful, the views of the Lake were always enjoyable.  We never made it to the top of our interim stop, ironically called “Thompson’s Hill”.   ( We were warned that this “hill” would be the most challenging part of our cycle.)   We did ride about 29-30 miles on the dirt/gravel track, including a wrong turn that took us down another trail.  We returned the bikes and were very tired, sore (hate those bicycle seats!) but enthused about what we did accomplish.

On Friday, we fly to Auckland for an overnight stay before flying to Sydney for 7 days.  It is hard to believe that we only have about 5 weeks left on this first segment.  We hope that snow starts to fall in Utah soon; as, we have been tantalized by the snow covered mountains in the South Island of New Zealand!

Last August, we had much debate about whether we should visit Milford Sound or Doubtful Sound from Queenstown.   Milford Sound is much busier and requires 10 hours of riding on a tour bus or taking a small plane on the return and cutting the trip time in half.  We were going to opt for the bus/plane tour; but, we were concerned that if the weather was not in our favor for the plane ride back to Queenstown, we would be in for a very long bus journey.  We opted for the Doubtful Sound tour; as it is only a 5- hour++ round trip bus ride.   Today, was our Doubtful Sound Tour and we woke up to rain, 35 degree temperatures and high winds-yuk!  (At this point, we were quite happy that we did not select the Milford Tour).  Being right on a lake, the dampness makes it feel substantially colder.  Lesley piled on 6 layers of clothes which included 3 long sleeve shirts, two Lululemon jackets and a Patagonia puffer.  She was still chilled to the bone most of the day!

The tour bus, with about 19 other tourists, picked us up at 7:15 a.m. at our hotel.  We were off and running with terrific commentary from the bus driver about the New Zealand topography and some fascinating New Zealand legends.  It actually started snowing on our way to Doubtful Sound and we had snow covering the mountains by the time we arrived back in Queenstown.  Keep in mind, that November is New Zealand’s late springtime.  The initial drive was through farmlands, including farms raising deer, sheep & wapiti (elk).  Many of the sheep farms have converted to dairy production because of basic economics.

The normal tour was bus, boat across a lake, bus, then boat in Doubtful Sound.  Because of recent rains,  a bridge on the second bus ride was washed out –  it became bus, boat, bus, walk, bus, boat.  It was quite the journey!  Doubtful Sound is beautiful and the rain that morning resulted in numerous temporary waterfalls.  The road after the lake is the only NZ road that is not connected to any other road in NZ.  Thus, the only way to visit Doubtful Sound is by boat.  The Doubtful Sound area is a national park and the  area reaches to the “high tide” mark.  A number of years ago, a cray fishermen realized the opportunity and built a “hotel” just below that high water mark.  It is the ONLY building in the Doubtful Sound area.  After his “hotel” was built, the government quickly changed the laws outlawing such a structure.  Today, ended up being a very long day (about 13 hours) but totally worth it.  We will sign off for a few days due to travel.  Tomorrow, we are flying off to Auckland overnight and then on to Sydney the following day.

On Monday, we hiked the well-known Queenstown Hill Trail.  This was not a hill but a major mountain!  We walked uphill on a never- ending steep trail to the summit at 2700 feet above sea level.  The views of the lake and snow covered mountains were extraordinary as were the high winds.   Right now, it is late spring in New Zealand; but the weather feels more like it is late fall.  As we hiked (tramped) up the hill,  we continually heard the breaking of tree limbs.  Not a big issue until we saw the 2 1/2 foot diameter “branch” that had crashed upon the trail no more than a week before.  The total hike was about 4.5 arduous miles-quite demanding as the heart really pumps as you  gain altitude.  Because of the “loop”, the downhill loop was a bit shorter than the uphill climb.  The downhill hike was just as difficult due to the constant stress on the knees since we didn’t have our hiking pole with us.

Later that day, we drove to Glenorchy which is the northern most town on Lake Wakatipu. The drive along the lake was quite magnificent.  We read that this drive was one of the most scenic drives in all of the South Island and we agree.  The town of Glenorchy was VERY SMALL.   Once there, we walked the Glenorchy Lagoon trails, including boardwalks across the lagoons, for about 4 miles.   It was so incredibly windy and cold, there were times when it felt like we were both going to be swept from the miles of boardwalk into the muddy marsh below.  We spotted about 15 horses  and riders tramping through the shallow water to a small peninsula-it was a perfect photographic moment against the snowy mountains and the gorgeous aqua-colored lake.

David began his day at 5 am watching the New Zealand All Blacks defeat Australia in the Rugby World Cup from England.  It was a great game.  Rugby is clearly unappreciated in the US.

Before we drove to Queenstown, we decided to hike the Diamond Trail overlooking Lake Wanaka – about a 3-4 hour hike rated moderate to difficult.  (Little did we know at the time.)  The hike started off benign enough around Diamond Lake.  Next came the stairs that went on & on.  We were planning on heading to the Lake Wanaka viewing area and then, maybe, the Rocky Mountain Summit.  After the stairs,  the trail narrowed to almost less than a goat path (no goats were seen, however).  The view halfway up at the Wanaka viewing area was stunning; however, there were some really wet, slippery, muddy moments.  We decided to take the “plunge” and do the eastern trail to the summit of the Rocky Mountain Trail.  After practically crawling up some spots, feeling like we were mountain climbing,  we reached a plateau with a sign – “trail damage ahead, proceed with caution”.  This little rock climbing adventure was pretty frightening.  If we didn’t have our footing properly on the rock, we would have fallen off the steep edge many feet down the side of the mountain – yikes!  A part of the trail ahead had sluffed off leaving only a big rock to climb over with minimal hand holds.  At least that drop was only 15 feet before you hit any bushes on the steep hill.  We (not really) decided to go for it; although, Lesley was practically in tears and wanted to turn back. The eastern trail had many switchbacks on the very steep, slippery slope with significant portions requiring some bouldering.  We finally did make the summit at 2500 feet.  The views were glorious and worthy of this life-risking trek.  Going down the western trail was much easier with only a few muddy, slippery rock areas  and a very challenging steep dry- bed creek to boulder over.

We were then off to Queenstown, a lovely city on Lake  Wakatipu, passing through Cardrona, a small ski town that was having a Breast Cancer Fundraiser (pics below).  On the way to Queenstown, we also stopped by Arrowtown.  The town is a very quaint gold mining town with many well-preserved buildings used by European and Chinese immigrants dating from the gold mining days of the town.