Hostile Traveler

I arrived in Sydney late last night, so I pretty much went out long enough to grab some food and crash. My first observation upon stepping outside for the first time in Sydney was, “Holy fuck it’s humid.” We’re talking the kind of humidity that causes your skin to get condensation on it when you step out from something air conditioned. Then again, the condensation doesn’t really matter because you start sweating your ass off in a few moments anyways.

With hopes of drier air, I headed out of my hotel this morn to be confronted with 90+ degrees, 100 percent humidy. Fuck. Where Perth was pleasant and dry, this was just nasty. But, at least it was sunny out, so I headed over to Darling Harbour, which is where my hotel is this time.

…and another view from the ground. My hotel is the white bowed-out one in the middle, and my room overlooks the harbour. Along the right side are tons and tons of restaurants of all sorts that turn into nightclubs at night. There’s also a couple of large nightclub-only places that attract queues of tarted-up girls. They wouldn’t let me in. I’ll have to try more makeup tomorrow.

I found a place that had sails around the entire harbour, so I signed up for one with the intent of just chilling out in the seabreeze with a margarita and maybe snapping some pics of the sights. But, I had a couple of hours to burn, so I did a bit of shopping and wound up in a kind of strange little zoo-ish place in Darling Harbour. It’s all indoors, but they have stuff like koalas and reptiles and such….and biggest plus - cold cold air conditioning. Sold - I’m in. Besides, it was right across from the salboat’s mooring.

Just a couple more critter pics. First one is a Horned Devil as close as I could get.

And the second is something a little softer - a koala. Looks like a man-eater, doesn’t it?

After a quick walk through the exhibits, it was time for the boat to depart. Know that phrase ‘One is the loneliest number’? Yeah, well, I was the only one that wasn’t a couple getting on the boat. Ah well. So as I’m getting on the boat, as soon as my foot hits the deck, the skies open up. Everyone runs inside the cabin area for cover, and it looks like we’re going through a carwash. But, apparently, the sail must go on, so we do a kind of halfhearted cruise around.

The rain let up long enough for me to snap a few pictures, and I caught one that would have been good if it weren’t for the rain pissing down. You can see the Opera House, Harbour Bridge, and Fort Denison in the shot, along with a ginormous cuise ship docked at Circular Quay behind the Opera House.

…but then the rain started coming down hard again, so that was that. At least it’s cooler now, but I hope it stops soon. Tomorrow (my last day here) I’m heading out of the city for the day to the Blue Mountains so I can get a taste of what the countryside looks like.