Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

We have stopped at this port on all our previous world cruises, so click on these links to see what we did each of those years: 2018, 2015, 2012. Sydney is always interesting! Our sail in was in the pre-dawn hours before the ferries start running.

Surprise! The ship docked behind us at White Bay pier was the former Prinsendam, which we loved on our Grand Mediterranean Cruise in 2016. It was the smallest of the HAL fleet at the time, with a capacity of about 700 passengers, and was sold in 2020 and is now the Amera.

As usual, we were first off the ship and way before the shuttle buses were running to Darling Harbor, so we walked about a mile through the neighborhood to a ferry stop on the other side of the peninsula and caught a ferry to Circular Key, which is the center of most of the activity: ferries, light rail, trains, and buses. We stopped to admire the Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca) that were working the lawn areas.

As we gained altitude in the park that paralleled the port, we got a better view of the Amera.

And of our own Zuiderdam with Sydney in the background.

There were many charming houses and other buildings in the neighborhood.

 
A Banksia flower (Banksia sp.) and a vine-obscured building date

Once on the ferry, we crossed under the famous Sydney "coat hanger" bridge and approached the iconic opera house next to Circular Key.

This stone map of Circular Key as it was in 1888 had been installed in 2018.

 
A Carnival ship was docked at Circular Key. We waited for the ferry we wanted, which would to take us up the river as far as it would go to a natural area there. We had not explored the river area on our previous visits.

One of the ferry stops was at this island where you could rent a tent for some "Glamping."

 
We liked this intriguing brick boathouse across the way from this ferry stop on the river.

When we saw the whole property, it was well matched with the brick mansion behind it, which was bustling with activity.

 
We had reached our destination, a wildish preserve up the river. These herons are both White-Faced Herons (Egretta novaehollandiae) with the one on the left being immature with less white on the face.

These ducks are probably Australian Wood Ducks (Chenonetta jubata).

The weather had been threatening all morning, but when it became a deluge, we took shelter with a group of mentally disabled adults and their caretakers under this covered area in what was an old armory that is now part of the reserve.

 
After about half an hour or so, it had stopped raining enough so we headed the two miles back to the ferry stop instead of hiking further into the preserve, because we didn't know how long the rain would hold off, but first we took a few photos of the area where the old armory machinery and the new various monuments to the original peoples mingle.

The seagulls took advantage of a freshwater puddle for a bath.

We caught a ferry back to town and got off at Darling Harbor where the ship's shuttle buses were dropping and picking up passengers. After lunch on the ship, we were going to go out again, but as we were getting ready to disembark, the sky opened up and there was a nearby clap of thunder. We called it a day.

The next day, we were again out way before the shuttle buses were running. This time we walked a mile out of the port to a bus stop and caught a bus to the Queen Victoria Building where we took a tram to Circular Quay. We walked to the Sydney Botanical Garden from there.

Some great old stone buildings on the way to the botanic gardens.

 
The morning light was wonderful.

"Walk on the grass, touch the trees, smell the flowers..." So we did.

Again, we enjoyed watching the Australian White Ibis.

An interesting sculpture of a wale's tale with iridescent streamers to simulate the water running off the tale.

 
Cat's whiskers (Orthosiphon aristatus) a member of the mint family native from India, SE Asia and the tropical island between there and northeast Australia. And the Echidna is a living sculpture with aloes growing on its back, while the ants are covered with sphagnum moss. Echidnas, sometimes known as spiny anteaters, are quill-covered monotremes belonging to the family Tachyglossidae. The four extant species of echidnas and the platypus are the only living mammals that lay eggs.

 
A Cassowary Bird sculpture was across from the Echidna. We loved these beautiful pink bananas.

While there are no flying foxes in this garden any more, there were still plenty of wild things to see.
(The flying foxes are large fruit bats with leathery wings that the garden managers had been trying to chase away because the bats were causing so much damage to the trees. They had succeeded and still have some self-flying kites shaped like predators on strings that were attached to mounted wands placed around the grounds. )

We saw many of these Australian Swamphens (Porphyrio melanotus) here and in our other Australian and New Zealand ports. They are related to the American Coots and Mudhens.

The light was nice on this wide spreading gum or eucalyptus tree.

This was part of the cactus display...

The Greater Sulphur-crested Cockatoos (Cacatua galerita) are well-known tool users, but here they didn't need tools other than their beaks to eat the fruit of a fig tree.

 
There were also many raucous calls of the Rainbow Lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus), but they were not easy to photograph, since they stay hidden among the foliage. These are true parrots, while the cockatoos, which are related, are not.

After traipsing around the gardens for a couple of hours, we decided to take a closer look at the opera house, which was on our way back to Circular Key.

 
A close-up look at those iconic tiles and a look back to a section of the botanic garden, which was at the same level as the top of the stairs of the opera house, and at a new sculpture there. It's called "bara" which is the word for an ancient fishhook shaped like this and was used by women of the Eora native people. This sculpture was recently unveiled in May 2022.

We took a light-rail train to the Queen Victoria Building (QVB was the name of the stop.) It's a huge thing running the full length of a long block which is now basically a mall with vendors and restaurants inside at street level.

From there we walked a few blocks to the ship's shuttle bus at Darling Harbor.

From our balcony, evening kayakers, moved to the outside of the deep water marker and stopped paddling to let the Amera navigate through a narrow space of the harbor.

Later, as we sailed through the harbor, we noticed this double-decker apartment complex built into the side of the rock ledge and with a green roof and park atop the lower level.

This whole park at the end of Darling Harbor was constructed on reclaimed land. They had started it in 2018, but now it looks more established with many mature trees and shorelines built to resemble the natural rocky shorelines in the area. Next time we'll make a point to walk over to it.

A lovely sunset from our balcony...

It had been a wonderful two days in Sydney. We then sailed south to Tasmania, the large island south of Australia.