D66 -- Sydney w/ Peter & Declan

Peter and Declan offer a couple of different tours, so we decided to take one to get a feel for the city. Peter chauffeured us around from 10:30am to 5:30pm, while Peter told us stories about Sydney and his personal connections to the city. For example, we drove by a beautiful church and he told us he'd seen Elton John marry a woman there as a publicity stunt a few decades back. We drove through many different neighborhoods of Sydney and stopped at several places to take in the views. It seemed that every neighborhood we went to had fabulous views of the water and had recently become “upmarket.” Where do all the middle- and low-income people live?!?

We stopped for fish and chips near a wharf where Russell Crow supposedly owns an apartment. Very, very “upmarket”. Some of the tour highlights included: a visit to St. Mary's Cathedral, an enormous Gothic building opened in 1882; the Royal Botanic Gardens, where we saw lots of flying foxes; Bondi beach, where scores of people were swimming and surfing despite the riptide and undertow warning signs everywhere; and the entrance of the harbor. There were some very pretty cliffs over looking the incredibly blue water there. Apparently the cliffs are popular with those wishing to commit suicide, and were used in the filming of the Matrix.

-Elva