Blog 7: Opera at the Sydney Opera House!

We did not blog yesterday – not because we were locked in the hotel room room (we found the key) or that we were stuck in a car with a broken key (I fixed it), we were poorly ☹. Well, I was off colour, but Emily was proper poorly. We should have given everyone we were camping with a wide berth when they said they had all had a 24 hour bug…. Anyway, the day still happened, even if Em was pretty out of it.

When I spoke to the car hire folks about the car and the key, they said I would need to wait for someone to come from Brisbane to ‘look at the car’. I wasn’t a brownie for nothing, so rather than wasting a day of our holiday I said I would try and fix the key, and if I could, we would continue on our way and swap the car over at Sydney.

One roll of electrical tape borrowed from the hotelier later and we were on our way. I am so glad we had found the hotel key, he may not have been so helpful otherwise.

As we were leaving Armidale we saw a sign for the New England Regional Art Museum – so we did a quick u turn and went for a visit – a short visit, as it was closed, in honour of the King’s official birthday, it was a long weekend! This was going to be a theme of the day...

We broke the journey in a little place called Urella – at a coffee/old book shop called Café Gusto / Burnett’s Books (what3words: wrestler.squeezed.urged) so Emily could indulge her love of any thing literary and I could sit in the sun with my brew.

Honestly we have been saying that Oz is about 10 years behind the UK in a lot of things (you still get charged extra to pay by credit card for example – typically 4%) this place was well and truly stuck in the 70s! There was a sign on the coffee bar that said ‘Look in the book shop if I am not here’ and the owner reminded me of Mrs Overall from the Victoria Wood sketch (it took almost 15 minutes to make to flat white coffees) and there were some very questionable things on sale – a Gollywog doll for example.

They also had a little drinks station set up, and the main tipples of choice seemed to be Campari or Malibu.

When he made our coffees he did give us two complementary biscuits each – not packet ones either, home made!

The place was a bit of a ghost town – in fact everywhere was, in honour of the King’s birthday – I am not sure where everyone was celebrating HRM’s birthday, but they were not doing it in public!

We overheard some other patrons talking about a place called the ‘Pie Mechanic’ down the street, and they were saying they did the best sausage rolls in the world……challenge accepted. They were wrong – so wrong in fact I had to throw it in the bin!

We continued to Tamworth, home of the big golden guitar, and the Country Music capital of Australia.

Em had been really excited to visit here, but sadly she was so sick it was straight to a very odd hotel room for her. The hotel was the 395 Motel, and for some reason we had been booked into an accessible room - not generally a problem for us, but I had a big problem with the bathroom, which was a wet room and also housed the fridge and microwave, right next to the shower!

I went for a wander while Emily slept, and when I got back she kept asking me to open the doily – took a while to realise she was meaning the net curtains, which were heavy lace. Anyway, we both got into bet at 4 pm – last of the great partiers!

Next morning I took Emily for a quick drive around the town so at least she could say she had seen it, and we set off on the 5 hour drive to Sydney, where we got lost 3 times, drove through the tunnel twice and finally arrived at the car hire place, where they swapped our car, then upgraded us and did not charge for the nearly empty tank of petrol in the other one – faith restored in Juicy Car hire!

We found our digs for the next 3 nights – the Mariners Hotel (what3words; Ocean.sounds.about) and considered an early night as Em is still off colour, but we managed to snag tickets to the Opera in stead, so we dashed for a quick dinner at the harbour in the Eastbank Café Bar and Pizzeria (What3words; dent.pillow.crazy) where we had lasagne that seemed to be swimming in tomato soup, but was just exactly what the doctor ordered, and at only £15 each it was not so bad considering where we were, right by the quayside.

Then up to the Opera House. This was my first view of it

There is a light installation on in Sydney just now, so a lot of the landmarks are lit up – we saw the ones from the Harbour while we were there and plan a longer visit tomorrow.

Patrons of the Opera were a proper hodge podge. We had worn dresses, not in our finest finery, but others were. Some wore tuxedos, and posh froks (not at the same time) and Emily was moved to tell a lady in the loos that she loked lovely - she had a fur stole, and a long sparkly dress and was about 80 - I think it made her evening!

We saw Rigoletto and it was marvellous. The set was very clever, and very detailed. The acoustics were perfect and the performers excellent! That is another thing ticked off my bucket list - I am a very lucky lady.

Hopefully Em will be back to top form tomorrow, as there are many more adventures to be had!