Thursday... so what did we do today? Well... it wasn't what we'd planned, that's for sure.
I'd wanted to go up Sydney Tower because it seemed cool - 300m tall tower thing with views all over Sydney and a rotating resturant up top. I'd also quite liked to have got a train across Sydney Bridge.
We decided that it'd be cool to have lunch at the top of the tower in the resturant... so needed something to pass the time until lunchtime to save us hanging around at the top of the tower.
It was decided to go to the harbour again to see it in the daylight. Time to do the touristy thing and go on a harbour tour by boat. Definately worth it - there were some amazing views and I almost filled the memory card on my camera...
John noticed a naval ship and a submarine docked at the Maritime Museum whilst on the tour... and decided that it was a must that we went to see around them. Fair enough... we'll do that after doing the tower!
This is where the day began to go Pete Tong.
So, we get in the queue to buy some tickets to go up to be told that there's an hour wait... bah, an hour's nothing... and an hour's wait to come down... oh and maybe we'll have to use the stairs to come back down... I enquire about the numebr of stairs... 1500 or something is the reply... We buy the tickets... I get a student ticket, and John who's failed to bring his ISIC with him is about to pay the full up price... not to worry... the girl behind the counter says "Show me something exciting from your wallet and I'll let you up as a student..."
Best he could come up with was his E111 card! Ah well... did the trick!
We joined the queue. We are told why there is the delay. There's two lifts and one of them's shut itself off for safety reasons because the windspeed is too high. The other lift is travelling at 1/8th speed because of the wind... this means that instead of the 1 min accent, it's taking 8 mins, and only 8 people fit in a lift at a time... hmmm.... this is gonna be a long wait.
A guy comes along with a load of sweets from the gift shop and starts handing them out to pacify us... about 5 mins later out comes another guy... "It's not going to happen, it's too windy. The tower is now closed... go and get your money back or come back another day"
"Bollocks... we're not gonna be able to come tomorrow...". We get our money back.
So, then we go to the Maritime museum via the monorail - cunningly the day pass to the monorail has 20% off the museum entry... (thus paying for half of the monorail ticket) good job we took the monorail I decided.
The sub and ship were interesting... I'm glad I don't want to be in the Navy! We're not allowed on Endevour because we've not bought the right ticket... not to worry I doubt it was worth the extra $16!
Then it's off to get a CityRail train thing over the bridge...
Would have been perfect if it wasn't for the bloody bridge being closed and them doing rail replacement busses. So, that screws that up. We managed one stop before having to get out and find the busses... we decided there was no point as the whole point of the trip was to go across the bridge, not around the harbour! This means that I've still got my CityRail ticket though, so that's made up for it being eaten yesterday! :-)
We decide to come back to the hostel... and that's were I am writing this :-) Tomorrow we say goodbye to Sydney and fly to Cairns...