This is an exciting happening thread

I have months to plan for a trip next June but it's fantastic what you can do on the fly with help from Fodorites downunder!

I didn't drink coffee for months after a week in Sydney. I was really surprised to find such absolutely fantastic coffee in all the tiny hole in the wall coffee places I went to.
There was one tiny coffee place just across the street from the ocean at Bondi beach that I returned to because I didn't believe I'd get such good coffee just anywhere, then I bravely tried another latte at another hole in the wall (the Crabbe Hole at the Bondi Icebergs pool) and that was great too!

Have fun gruezi!

sounds like you had a super time with MissB and I bet she had a blast too.

keep it coming.

Yes our Ozzie friends on Fodor's have been a huge help. We have had a great week as a result.

Today we fly to Sydney. I'm sad to leave lovely Melbourne and our very comfortable hotel but I'm told Sydney will be quite nice as well. I love water so I think the harbor will be a nice welcome. We started our morning today by a trip to the pool and gym since our trousers grow ever snugger with all the good food and wine.

Sassy - I'm limiting myself to 2 cups a day. It's not easy!!! Lucky you to be coming in June.

Yesterday we started with more good coffee on Degreaves Lane. Then a stroll of the Botanical Gardens as we were up hours before the museums open. We planned to visit the Koorie Heritage Museum but went there and discovered it was closed on weekends. So, as we were in the area, we strolled the laneways and arcades and then had an early lunch at Cumulus thinking we'd go to the Immigration Museum after. A few glasses of wine later and all the walking and jetlag caught up with us so we took a nap instead. Then we met Mr. Gruezi's Italian business friends for coffee in the Italian part of the city. A very relaxed and nice final day despite not doing anything cultural.

Bokhara - If you are still able to GTG, and I hope you are!, would Wednesday or Friday work? I could also do Monday. If you want to talk offline my gmail is gruezi322 We decided on the Shang. We will go to Brisbane for the day on Tuesday. Hope you and I can connect.

Hi Gruezi
Let's make it Friday, if that works for you. Seems as if that will be the best day weather-wise.

Showers/ rain predicted for tomorrow, so buy an umbrella ( or see if the Shang have them for guests).

I'll drop you a line at your gmail address.

Looking forward to meeting you & I hope you like the Shang.

Hi Gruezi,

Hope you enjoyed that magnificent red sunrise over the Harbour & Opera House to welcome you to Sydney this morning.

There's something quite magical about sitting on the windowsill, early morning cuppa in hand, watching the day dawn from your Shangri La eyrie.

If you feel like a little walk this morning, you might like this:
Ferry to McMahons Point
Follow the road around to the left past the Harbour park. Across the Harbour are the old wharves of Walsh Bay, a little to the west, you'll see Balmain & Cockatoo Island.

That high rise on the point in front of you is the famous/infamous Blues Point Tower. This SMH interview with the architect Harry Seidler in 2002, captures the controversy & history.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/...734319538.html

Continue up Blues Point Road & reward yourself with a coffee at any of the coffee shops.

Take the street to your right heading to Lavender Bay & then the walkway down the steps at the Harbourside Indian Restaurant to Wendy Whiteleys Secret Garden.

Wander through & enjoy, emerging at the Milsons Point end. Walk down to the Harbour, have a close up look at the Luna Park face, check out Ripples and Aqua Dining for possible later visits.

Under the overpass to Kirribilli. Broughton street has lots of good little restaurants. Garfish is good.

Take the steps in the Eastern side up to the Harbour Bridge walkway & walk back to the city. Takes me about 15-20 mins with photo & "wow" stops. You might like to climb the pylon on the southern (city) side for some higher views. Less than $20. The walk ends in Cumberland Street, above The Rocks.

There's a good Tourist Info centre in The Rocks, so hop in & see what they have of interest.

Call into Wine Odyssey & sample some of their tasting room's extensive selection of Australian wines. Or just have a look if the sun isn't over the yardarm

Chat later - enjoy your day.

Thanks very much Bokhara!

I wish I read your very thorough post this morning. But I'll save that wonderful sounding walk for Weds or Thurs.

Today I got worried about all the bad weather forecasted so headed early to Bondi Beach and took the coastal walk. It's quite pretty but very busy with joggers and unleashed dogs so not very relaxing. I came back by bus and hopped off at Hyde Park as I wasn't sure where exactly the bus would go. We were there last night for Noodle Nights (fun atmosphere and every possible kind of noodle!) Today it was delightful to stroll under the gorgeous old trees and enjoy the quiet.

I'm now at the Gallery of NSW. I took my own tour and was going to wait for the 2 pm tour of the Australian gallery but I'm feeling too tired. I'm not sure how I'll get my tired feet back to the hotel at this point but I think I need a nap. I'd have another delicious coffee, but my personality is feeling more like a poisonality right now;(

The sun is coming out and those thunderstorms are no where in sight.

I will plan Wednesday much better.

I'm glad we had the chance to see the water, bridge and opera house yesterday in the sun. All were glorious! We do have a great view of the opera house from our room.

The short sharp shower has been & gone on the northern beaches & the sun is out - hopefully the CBD will be sparkling too.

Gruezi - the AGNSW is open until 9pm on Wednesdays, with guest speaker,
often music. Have a look at their Art After Hours program on their website.

NB for Brisbane: you must go to their Gallery of Modern Art too. Lovely precinct.

I've emailed you - was thinking we might call in at AGNSW, but will go to the Brett Whitely instead as you've been now & I'm there so often it's no loss for me.

I'm sitting outside the Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art with a lovely view of the river and some perfect weather. I think there may be clouds in Sydney so I feel very clever having escaped them

The indigenous art here is really special - I was quite taken by the various baskets and jewelry. I'm a "crafter" and this really appealed to me. Particularly loved the paintings that are collaborations of generations of women - mother/ daughter/ granddaughter.

After lunch I'll have a highlights tour of the other gallery which people keep referring to as "the old stuff" but funnily the 1st floor exhibit is quite contemporary.

Then I'll either stroll along the river, take a ferry ride or stay for a curator talk. TBD! I'm leaning toward a stroll.

I'm enjoying a very refreshing iced latte which ends my 2 coffees quota for today.

Dare I have 3?

That's my idea of living dangerously!

isn't Brisbane lovely? We really liked the waterfront on the South side with the beaches and bouganvillea covered walkways.

you do know that the hoppa ferry is free don't you? We took it round to the botantical gardens and then walked back through the city. There's a good coffee kiosk right at the other end of the gardens at the main gate, BTW. And free wifi on all the boats and in the gardens, if you can find the right spot.

We had an "exciting" trip back from Brisbane tonight. There was a thunderstorm right over the Sydney airport so we circled about for over an hour and then finally landed. I had a lovely seatmate - an architect whose husband is an aerospace engineer - and during the rough bits she distracted me with tidbits of information about Sydney and statistics about how safe flying is. I had given her my complimentary wine so we were fast friends. We eventually landed safely and then finally got a taxi. There were quite deep levels of flash floods coming back into downtown and we had to get through some small lakes and many cars were stalled. We got lucky and did not need to wait for canoe rescue and finally made it back to our hotel.

(Can I just say that I love Virgin Australia? What a civilized airline. And the little snacks and wine etc. are quite nice. Not to mention the new and sparkly clean planes.)

Loved Brisbane. Had a great private tour of the Art Gallery. The guide was a retired flight nurse married to an American and we were fast art friends.

The Gallery was being prepared for the arrival of the G20 including the much hated Putin.

I loved the whole museum complex in Brisbane. Saw some really lovely art. On the way in to the city beforehand we were very taken by the gorgeous jacaranda trees. How fun to see the painting Under the Jacarunda tree a few hours later. My friends back home will all be getting postcards of it.

Between the two galleries and tours I had a delicious pumpkin soup at the museum cafe which sits right on the river. I also had a very nice walk along the river. The Streets Beach is idyllic. I was sorry not to have my bathing suit on hand.

Very glad I made the trip to Brisbane. Esp. Since the weather was glorious. The trip home was a bit rough but now we are safe and sound and dry.

Tomorrow I hope to have a bit of a lie in if my biorhythms cooperate.

oh, i didn't realise that you were doing a day trip to Brisbane - there's adventurous. how long was the flight?

before we visited Oz, I hadn't realised that Queensland is so big - I think that Brisbane is closer to Sydney than it is to Cairns, which is where we flew to out of Brisbane and it took 2 1/2 hours!

glad that you're "home" safe and well and good luck with your biorhythms tomorrow!

It's only 75 mins flight to BNE, Annhig

Glad to hear you're home Gruezi, have been hoping you were on an early flight.
A couple of planes had to sit on the Tarmac & one from Melbourne had to go back at the height of the storm.
Some international flights also being diverted.

The major problem now (23:55) is road closures & flooding - and there is snow in the Blue Mts.

That's what I thought, Bokara [the flying time from Sydney to BNE, that is].

Queensland is just huge!

I hope that your unseasonal weather doesn't cause too many problems for you or gruezi. [or indeed anyone else].

Brisbane sounds lovely!

I saw pictures of the snow in the Blue Mountains on Facebook this morning, ironically posted by a friend in Perth expecting it to be around 30C today!
I hope it's much, much better in Sydney especially for your GTG gruezi and Bokhara.

It's coffee time for me here (sigh).
Apart from the wonderful coffee I didn't find a glass of wine I didn't like in Sydney. Maybe it's a good thing I don't live there!

Hi Annhig - yes, it should have been an easy flight of about 75 minutes. Luckily we had no luggage as the ground crews were not working so those that had checked luggage were going to have a long wait to get it.

Bokhara - the flash flooding really was quite bad. I hope there were no major problems besides inconvenience as a result.

Sassy-cat - agree the wine is very good as well. Even the S.B. on the airline was quite nice. I only had a bit as I had taken some medication so don't normally drink when I fly.

Today looks like a full on rainy day. I'm disappointed not to get to do a swim again. The pool here is outside and so far the weather has not cooperated at all. I'm not terribly sad to loll about today and maybe write some postcards. Possibly take a tour of the opera house or something not requiring a ton of walking. My feet are a bit sore. Tomorrow the weather report says sunshine and my plan is the Spit - Manly walk. In real sports shoes!

I think I never mentioned Mr. Gruezi took me to dinner at Rockpool on Monday night. What a pretty spot and a delicious tasting menu. We also had done great local wines as well. Our main dish was Australian lamb and it exceeded our expectations. There were about 6 small tastings mostly seafood first plus an added fish dish which was encrusted with coconut.

(Last night we were so tired from the long day I ate leftover airline cookies in bed. Shhhh. Disgraceful I know.)

Enjoying your Brisbane section Gruezi. Haven't been yet, sounds like we need to. Crazy weather to greet you coming back though.


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There's snow in the Blue Mountains? Or did I misunderstand that?

We were just doing the walking track with the Furber steps just three weeks ago and it was warm-ish. It's meant to be getting warmer! (It dropped from 28C here on Monday to 14C on Tuesday. Fickle.)

Hi Clifton, here's a link to weather report with pictures of snow in the Blue Mountains today. The weather does sound crazy!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-1...ng-ses/5813924

Clifton - bring your daughter's swim suit. That pool looks so fun.

Also, the galleries there have extensive programming for children.

I'll be darned! We just stayed in Katoomba, took that waterfilled tunnel into Sydney. And poked around the areas south. It's a bit surreal to see those areas today, such a short time later. I just came in from the car and Melbourne radio is talking about it. Also warning flyers they are probably not leaving the airport if heading for nsw or meant to connect through SYD.

Hope our Fodorites, families and homes are all intact and well.