July 22, 2025: Sydney
On our first full day in Sydney, I woke up at 6 am – a normal time for me to be awake. I was pleased that my plan to recover from jetlag in Singapore had apparently been a success. P and D are much better sleepers than I am, so I left them a-snooze in their beds and went to the gym.
The Intercontinental’s gym is on the 31st floor of the hotel and shares a locker room area with the pool. The gym is clean and modern with a decent selection of free weights and cardio equipment. I was the only early bird in the gym, so I seized the opportunity to do a 20-minute strength training routine on my favorite fitness app followed by a quick 10 minutes on the elliptical. After my workout, I headed to the locker room. This gave me the opportunity to peek at the pool area, which has stunning views of Sydney Harbor and the Opera House. I topped off my gym time with a quick visit to the sauna.
By this point, I thought that my family might have noticed my absence. So, I returned to the room where I found D and P barely awake. I got myself cleaned up and then spent some time trying to figure out why I didn’t have cell service. Our wireless provider is Google-Fi. One of the reasons that we use them is the option to switch plans from month to month. A few days before we travel internationally, I switch us to their highest tier plan, which includes data in 200+ countries. My phone had worked fine in Singapore, but I was getting an error message that said there was no service available in Sydney. My efforts to fix the issue were ultimately fruitless. After 20 minutes of trouble shooting, the rep told me that the issue was that there were no cell towers in Sydney. At that point, I decided my time was better spent enjoying my vacation. (I suspect that the issue was my older phone’s compatibility with Australian cell towers. In hindsight, my decision to put off updating my phone until after our trip was the wrong call).
Fortunately, despite the lack of cell towers in the 2nd largest city in Australia, P and D both had service on their devices. We used D’s phone to research places to eat breakfast, settling on Bennies. Bennies is a café in Circular Quay with view of the Harbor Bridge. We were quickly seated in the heated outdoor dining area. P ordered pancakes and juice. D got eggs and a latte. And I had the banana bread, which came topped with ricotta cheese, honey, and bananas, and my first flat white of the trip. We were happy with this meal. The prices were quite reasonable given the location steps from the Opera House, and our food was tasty.
After breakfast, we continued walking along the harbor until we reached the Opera House. I have wanted to see Sydney Opera House for a long time – ever since the early 90’s, when I read an article in one of my nature magazines about monuments that were threatened by rising sea levels due to climate change. The Opera House more than lived up to my expectations. Photos don’t really convey the scale of the building or the way that it just seems to fit its location. Other than a small group of backpackers, we were the only tourists poking around, so we had lovely unobstructed views from every angle.
The Opera House is adjacent to the Royal Botanic Gardens, so we continued our walk through the gardens. The Royal Botanic Gardens have to be one of the most beautifully situated gardens in the world. Like the Opera House, they are perched along the harbor, so you get amazing views of the water as you walk. The gardens also have a wonderful array of bird life. We followed the sound of squawking to an area that had trees full of cockatoos and then spent some time admiring aquatic birds in a pond. By this point, we were thirsty (and realized that we had left our water bottle in our room), so we stopped at a café in the gardens for some drinks.
After all of that exploring, it was still only about 9:30 am. The Australian Museum, which P had selected as our main destination for the day, didn’t open until 10 am. We decided to leave the gardens and walk slowly towards the museum. Our walk took us past the Art Gallery of New South Wales; it also wasn’t open yet, but we did get to admire some of the outdoor sculptures.
When we arrived at the Australian Museum, there was a long-ish queue to enter. We quickly realized that was because it was merely 9:55. We decided to sit next to a fountain across the street from the museum and wait for the doors to open. Precisely at 10, the queue started to move. We crossed the street and joined the line.
The Australian Museum is free to enter, so the line moved quickly. We hung our jackets in the coatroom and started our visit in the Wild Planet gallery, which has a variety of taxidermy animals. Some of the animals were quite old and – by the looks of things – the museums original taxidermist didn’t have a lot of experience with live animals. P was delighted, or maybe appalled, by a colobus monkey that appeared to be wearing ill-fitting dentures.
The Australian Museum has a hodge podge of exhibits ranging from dinosaur bones to displays on the Eora people, the Indigenous People of the Australian Coast and Torres Strait. Unfortunately, the intriguingly named “Surviving Australia” exhibit on native wildlife was closed for refurbishment. But we spent a good 2 hours enjoying many of the other exhibits. We could have spent a bit longer, but our tummies were telling us it was time for lunch.
P requested pizza. After reviewing nearby options (a task made easier because a number of restaurants were not open for lunch on Tuesdays), we settled on Macchiato Wood Fired Pizza and Coffee. That meant another short and pleasant walk. This time, we passed through Hyde Park, the sight of the Anzac Memorial.
When we arrived, Macchiato was doing a steady business serving lunch to office workers. There were a few available tables, though, and we were seated immediately. We ordered 2 pizzas, a salad, and a soda for P. D ordered a lunch beer. That meant it was appropriate for me to have a lunchtime glass of wine. A pattern was established. Macchiato was another solid lunch choice. Our food was enjoyable and it was a good value for the price. (Keep in mind that the AUD/USD exchange rate in July was about 100/65, which did influence my perception of value everywhere we went).
After lunch, we poked into some shops looking for local football jerseys for P. There wasn’t anything in stock in his size, but the staff at Rebel – a sporting goods store – suggested that we check back later in the week. We accepted defeat and decided to return to the Intercontinental for our afternoon rest. Back at the hotel, P went up to the room, while D and I took a quick detour to a grocery store to pick up breakfast for the following morning – plus an assortment of local candy bars for room snacks.
We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in the room. For dinner that evening, we had our first experience on Sydney’s light rail, which we took to Spice Alley in Chippendale. Spice Alley is a Southeast Asian Hawker-Centre style dining location. It has a bunch of different food stalls surrounding an open-air dining area. We shared some spring rolls, dumplings, and laksa, and each got our own fancy fruit iced tea from the drinks and desserts stall. The vegetarian options were all clearly marked, which made it easy to find things we could eat.
As we ate, I enjoyed the ambiance that the glowing lanterns and “street art” created. Before we arrived, I had been a little worried about whether we would be uncomfortable eating outside. After all, it was winter and the sun sets early in Sydney (6pm). Happily, my worries were misplaced. There were plenty of heat lamps, enough that I didn’t even need to wear my jacket while I ate. After dinner, we walked to KOI Dessert Bar for fancy desserts and tea. Then, it was back to the Intercontinental for bedtime.
Travel Monkeys 