City weekend

After the success of our Melbourne weekend, we thought we'd try the same thing in Sydney: we booked a Saturday night at the InterContinental Hotel. Graham drove us to Manly wharf then drove home and came back on my folding bike. Then we took the ferry to town. We saw a tall ship out to sea.

We arrived at the hotel about 11:30 and they had a room ready for us. The check-in clerk asked Louka if she'd like a room low down or high up, and she asked for one high up. So we got a room on level 22 with views over the Botanical Gardens and the harbour. We could also see Nana's high school (the Conservatorium).

We were amused by the window into the bathroom.

After checking out all our room had to offer, we went to the big new(ish) Westfield shopping centre for lunch , then tried out the hotel pool. It was a fair-sized pool for a hotel pool, but not warm like the one in Melbourne. So we went for a walk to the Opera House.

Then we walked through the Botanical Gardens back to the hotel. Louka found a huge fig tree to play in.

Unfortunately, we spent too long looking at the gardens and found ourselves locked in. When we reached the gate we joined another group in the same predicament who had already phoned the ranger to come and let them out. It wasn't a long wait, but Louka was keen to be lifted over the gate. No way.

We had thought we'd try one of the restaurants along the Opera House foreshore for dinner, but by now it was rather cool and breezy so instead we went back to Westfield and had pizzas at an Italian place.

Next morning we again thought we'd try the foreshore restaurants for lunch, but of course they don't catch the morning sun so instead we headed for the Rocks. The Guylian chocolate café was open and caught a bit of sun, so we had pain au chocolat, pancakes with chocolate sauce, hot chocolate and chocolate milkshake for breakfast. Very nice too.

Then Louka's treat was a trip to the Australian Museum. There's a new exhibition of Deep Oceans I thought she'd enjoy, which she did, but after that she'd seen everything too many times and was bored.

So we headed home for lunch.