Tag Archives: Sydney

Retour vers Sydney

Lors de mon troisième passage à Sydney, il pleuvait pour la troisième fois. Mais cette fois ci c’était la dernière pluie Australienne avant mon départ pour Dubai.

J’avais froid et j’avais de sérieux doutes en voyant le thermomètre indiquant 30 degrés; que j’ai du accepter après avoir vu une confirmation de la température ambiante.

En plein milieu du quartier d’affaires durant les heures de pointes, j’ai été surpris à plusieurs reprises par des personnes qui se sont excusées d’avoir marché sur mon chemin, me barrant ma route à moins de deux mètres.

À l’exception des ferries, les transports publics à Sydney me paraissent incohérents, à défaut de ne pas dire préhistoriques ou stupides. Cette incohérence se ressent aussi bien au niveau du paiement, des voyages et de la tarification:
– au niveau des moyens de paiement, pas de carte de crédit acceptée ni de retour de change supérieur à 20 dollars dans les automates.
– si l’on souhaite effectuer un trajet urbain combinant train, ferry et bus, soit il faut s’arrêter à chaque correspondance et se munir d’un billet pour la partie suivante du trajet ou bien à défaut acheter un pass illimité – qui néanmoins n’autorise pas certaines destinations.
– Effectuer un trajet vers l’aéroport à 15 minutes coûte plus cher que de se rendre à une destination à trois heures de distance.

J’ai opté pour le pass et parcouru quelques lignes de ferry de la ville afin de découvrir et capturer des points de vue, pour finir à Darling Harbour afin de visiter le musée national maritime. J’ai été pour la première fois de ma vie dans un sous marin.

Statue d'oiseau Tasman light
HMAS Vampire HMAS Onslow
HMAS Onslow
Sydney harbour bridge Sydney harbour bridge

J’en ai profité pour retrouver un groupe de CouchSurfing et on a passé une soirée bien sympathique.

Niveau cuisine, étant fan de cuisine asiatique, j’en ai eu pour mes papilles gustatives en entrant dans un restaurant coréen où aussi bien le menu que les personnes étaient coréens.

Le dernier jour, je suis allé me baigner avant de repartir vers l’aéroport et embarquer, avec ma serviette mouillée.

Sydney and Manly

My first impression of Sydney is confirmed, it’s a green city; but – to be honest – I did not see much from Sydney as I really enjoyed walking around Manly, a suburb north of Sydney reachable by Ferry boat (30 minutes) and Jet Cat (15 minutes). It looks like a small town by itself and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that only people over a certain income or wealth can afford to live there.

There are many beaches around and hiking trails so it’s pleasant (and convenient) to walk and swim! I kept a track-log and will show you in the future. In fact, the little walk I planned became a forteen hours hike in some towns located North of Sydney.

This tour has been very instructive also:
How to clean a dog's business
There were more clever signs, but also less positive; I’ll say more later.

Then my visit to Sydney was limited to a walk around the harbour, opera house, botanic gardens: fantastic!, some parks and some shopping malls in Pitt Street where a 8-10 years old kid really surprised me – by playing some music in the street and asking for change in return. I even asked a police officer if that was common and he confirmed that anyone can get a permit for public performance – no age restriction.

In Sydney’s airport, I was “candidate” for a full security check so they looked for explosive traces on my clothes and my bags: I believe not too many people walk around an airport with a GPS and a backpack full of electronics in airports. New South Wales is behind for now as I left to Launceston (Tasmania) via Melbourne. Melbourne seems to be really dry; everything was yellow and I didn’t see many trees from the sky. In the airport, a sales lady in a store specialized in flying cow had so much fun with her toys that I couldn’t resist to laugh; I liked it! Then I was quite happy to have a memorable seat number on the place to Launceston (1A: sounds like first class upgrade! negative – this aircraft’s size is comparable to Luxair’s Fokker 50: four seats in a row and no space for more than 40 people). My first impression of Laucenston is not that great; but the marina was all-right and just outside the city there are fantastics trails, for example in the area of the Cataract Gorge.

I’m leaving tomorrow morning (very early) for an tour (which I found via the eco-tour label certification authority) that seems to be run by a very small company – last minute booking. I’ll be away for the next few days and probably won’t even answer to e-mails or approve comments (but no one comments anyway).

About my pictures, I did not upload too not many pictures yet; but unfortunately I took too many again! Already 1.7 GB of pictures are waiting to be sorted and geotagged, please be patient – and wait… until the end of my Tasmanian tour.

PS: please accept my apologies for any eventual (probable) mistakes on this post as I won’t have time to re-read it and even worse: I merged and split words and groups of words all the time while writing this post – and eating all you can eat sushi at mikaku for $13.50.

See you later, aligator!

Sydney

Tired; my luggage is delayed again (looks like I have full membership to the club of delayed bags, ask somekool for verification), grey and rainy, but hey! I’m there, and with a new telephone (that includes a manual in Arabic; no excuse to learn a new language!): Nokia E61; recommended by spoty for less than $300; it’s charging at the moment.
Sydney harbor bridge

My first impression: Sydney is very green, people seem to like trees as they are everywhere.

I’m about to leave for a small walk in Manly and get some food; then most likely this evening I will go to bed early 🙂

See ya later, aligator!