Random Musings

We flew out from Mumbai in the morning, headed to Singapore, had a short break at Singapore, before heading off to Sydney. We arrived early morning the next day, at Sydney, and had an onward flight to Auckland, only late in the evening. With a whole day at our disposal, we went into Sydney city, on the Boxing Day, and managed to catch a little bit of the beautiful Australian city.

We had taken Australian visas – in fact, as our original plans had an Australian part of the vacation – and these were necessary to get out into Sydney city. Although strictly speaking, for a transit halt, of no more than 72 hours, one could take a different kind of visa meant for the purpose, and which was also free of cost (as against the cost one has to pay for a regular tourist visa).

We had the other challenge, that of our bags. We needed to get our bags off, once we reached Sydney, and check-in again, with our bags, on our flight to Auckland. This was because the two sectors were independently booked, and not part of a single booking. Now we can’t haul around our bags all day, as we move around Sydney city. So what do we do?

Well, most airports provide baggage storage services, and we found the one at Sydney airport. There were two kinds – one, of an expensive nature, but which was within the terminal building, and the other, in the separate parking building of the airport, but which was far more affordable. We searched, found and used the latter.

Then, as we were four of us, we opted to take a cab (4 train or bus tickets would have been more money than a cab ride!) to central Sydney, and from where we opted to take one of those hop-on-hop-off open-top bus tours, and explore the city.

The Sydney Opera, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Bondi Beach were some of the places visited during the day. Some pictures follow herebelow..