A Stroll into Darling Harbour

Waking up feeling rested and refreshed following a good 12-hours or so sleep, we decided to take a lazy Sunday afternoon stroll down to Darling Harbour. One of the best things about actually moving to another country is that you can avoid scribbling out an unrealistic to-do list of sights to see in a time frame that assumes bending time and space is not a problem. So having explored very little of the local area we were surprised to find that Darling Harbour sits directly behind China town, about a 10-minute walk from our new house. This is not a small harbour and I have no idea how it took us well over two weeks to stumble upon it. One thing I will say is that we tend to spend a lot of time peering up at the trees when walking for fear of being dropped upon by a Red Back or Huntsman spider, or any of the other 10-million or so species in Australia that can seemingly kill a man just by looking at him.

The proximity of things in Sydney is also something we’ve come to expect and love. It might take half-an-hour to cross the length of the CBD by foot, but unlike London the city layout isn’t nebulous, and the partial-grid system makes it pretty straightforward to navigate. There’s no extensive underground system either but it’s easy to get where you’re going aboard clean and spacious double-decker trains (there’s actually room to breathe during rush hour and strangers talk to one another without fear). Sydneysiders are friendly, approachable, and most importantly for us very obliging. It could be that we’re simply seeing them from the tourist’s point-of-view, but when you walk around Darling Harbour on a day like this it’s not that difficult to understand why they’re all so cheerful. Photos to be added soon...