Day 22: The Second Location Involving “Pancakes” and “Rocks”

As usual, I woke up about an hour before my alarm was scheduled to go off: 6:25 a.m. instead of 7:30 a.m. I read through some of the free tourist guides for Sydney that I had picked up yesterday, and plotted a tentative route. The “Today” show’s weather bunny was forecasting partly cloudy skies with a high near 12 C (53 F), so I showered and was ready to leave by 7:50 a.m., although I delayed my departure to avoid commuting into the city during rush hour.

I walked out of the hotel at 8:45 a.m. to cool temps and solid gray skies – which made me wonder if I should bring with my rain gear. I asked the opinion of the girl at the front desk, who looked out the window and said that on a partly cloudy day like today (?), no rain should occur. So I walked back to the Walleye Crick (sorry, that should be “Wolli Creek”) rail station, bought a pass good for all day travel, anywhere on the system, using the bus, rail, or ferry system, and caught a train back to Circular Quay (pronounced “Circular Key”).

Downtown by 9:25, I navigated back to my first planned stop: Pancakes On The Rocks. I was seated immediately, although there were a lot of “mums” also in the restaurant, with a lot of kids in tow. (It turns out that Australian schools are on holiday until July 25th.) The pancakes (with strawberries) and hot tea were good, but The International House of Pancakes (of which I’ve seen none on this trip) is missing out on a big, untapped market in Australia and New Zealand.

Finished with breakfast, I headed back to the wharf at Circular Quay to catch the 10:55 ferry to Sydney Olympic Park, home to the 2000 Summer Olympics.

The ferries that head upriver are jet-drive catamarans that are quick, maneuverable, and shallow draft. The ferry I rode (shown leaving after it dropped me off at Olympic Park) was the “Evonne Goolagong”, named after the Aboriginal Australian who won atotal of seven women’s Grand Slam titles during her career. The ferry also stops at Cockatoo Island, which was the Aussie version of Alcatraz: a prison on an island in the middle of the bay. It is now a resort, where you can stay overnight in accommodations ranging from a tent to a luxury suite.

I arrived at the Olympic Park ferry terminal at 11:45, and a subsequent bus ride had me standing in front of what was the main Olympic stadium at 12:15.

I headed to the visitor information site, and found out that you could tour almost any building, but each was a separate fee, and would take from 30 to 60 minutes per tour. As I wasn’t planning to make this my only stop of the day, I freelanced my own tour.

This forest of what appear to be anodized aluminum poles is located just in front of Olympic Stadium. Each pole has two engraved stainless steel plaques attached to it, and the name of every athlete who competed at the 2000 Olympic or Paralympic games is on one of these plaques:

Across Olympic Boulevard is Cathy Freeman park. Cathy Freeman was an Australian Aboriginal sprinter, who was the first Aboriginal gold medalist in the Commonwealth Games in 1990. She won a gold medal in the 400 meter sprint in Sydney, and was selected to light the flame for the 2000 games. Fittingly, the Olympic Cauldron is in the park.

The names of all medal winners at the Olympic and Paralympic Games are inscribed on gold, silver, and bronze plaques attached to the base of the cauldron. By now, it was approaching 2:30, and I still wanted to visit the Opera House in the city, so I hopped on a train and headed back into town. I arrived at the Opera House around 3:30.

From a distance, the roof lines of the Opera House appear as sails. On closer inspection, they appear more like sea shells:

This is achieved by having the roof covered in geometric patterns of ceramic tiles:

I wandered around the Opera House for a while, and also watched some of the street performers around Circular Quay. As the light was fading due to the persistent cloud cover, I stopped at a “Hungry Jacks” restaurant (Burger King of Australia), and took a Whopper on the train with me back to my hotel. (No one speaks loudly, eats, or drinks beverages on the trains here, so I followed tradition and waited the 40 minutes it took to get back to the hotel before eating. It still beat the heck out of the previous night’s epicurean delights from Café Sept-Onze.)

I have some packing to finish up before retiring for my final night abroad, and the shuttle bus to the airport picks me up at 8:55 tomorrow morning, so I’m closing here. By the grace of United Airlines and God (not sure I have the billing order correct there), I should be home “tomorrow”. The closing chapter will follow from there.

Train mileage: 58 km for the day

Ferry mileage: 16 km for the day