Travelers' tip: Unlike our last trip, the guidebooks for Australia pretty well sucked. Yup. You read that correctly. They were woefully inaccurate, out-of-date, or just plain missing some critical information. One such secret: Bus #555. It's the "tourist" bus, and it happens to be free! It makes a circle (in both directions) between Haymarket and Circular Quay using the two major streets (George & Elizabeth). The best part: it stops just a few doors down from our hotel. The downside is that it only runs between 9:30am-3:30pm. Still, it's a great way to get around Sydney's CBD (Central Business District).
The morning of day four, we headed for an area called "The Rocks". As the name would suggest, the terrain undulates quite a bit. The hills weren't unreasonable though. It is adjacent to the west side of Circular Quay (where we were yesterday).
In colonial times, the Rocks had a reputation for being a hard-partying sailors' area. It conjures images of harlots and taverns and plenty of debauchery.
This structure is called Cadman's Cottage. It happens to be the oldest house in Sydney. It's had a rough life. It was originally the home of John Cadman, the government coxswain in 1816. After that it had several insignificant purposes until it became a national landmark.
This is me outside the Rocks Discovery Museum. It wasn't very big, but it did tell some interesting tales of early life in the penal colony.
Over my head is the southern foundation pylon (CBD side) for the Harbour Bridge.
After lunch at a pub in the Rocks (Ma and I both had the fish and chips; it was called The Orient), we crossed the Circular Quay and headed for the Royal Botanic Gardens. It looks like a quite a distance in this photo, but it's really just a short walk from the base of the bridge.
Besides some interesting (and sweet-smelling) plants, we encountered several of these colorful creatures. They're called lorikeets. They look incredibly exotic, but they're fairly common here.
I think these are a species of ibis.
Deep inside the Royal Botanic Gardens is a building called the Government House. It was designed by the same guy who helped design Buckingham Palace. Today it is used for parties for state officials and for tourists.