Yesterday saw us travelling down to Sydney to go on a tall ship champagne brunch trip around Sydney Harbour, our Christmas present from Zoe and Shaun. We left home at the crack of dawn to catch the train from Newcastle to Central Station in Sydney. Train travel is so cheap here, it cost $2.50 each (just over £1) to travel the same sort of distance as London to Birmingham so we have got into the habit of using the trains instead of driving whenever we can.
We arrived in plenty of time to poke around The Rocks Market, which is excellent at weekends, and to grab a cup of coffee before settling in Campbell Cove to wait for our ship to come in. When it sailed into view it was a beautiful Danish built cargo ship which was used in the Onedin Line and led the re-enactment fleet commemorating the arrival of the first fleet in the 1988 Sydney bicentennial celebrations.
On we all hopped and were wined and dined with oysters and all sorts of other goodies as we sailed around the harbour. Some brave souls (fools) opted to take the offer of a climb up the rigging to stand in the crow's nest for a bird's eye view of the sights. Not us, our feet stayed firmly on the deck besides, they were not allowed any of the champers until after they had completed their climb.

It was a bit of a grey day but that was quite handy as not much of the deck was under cover and we were out for a couple of hours, long enough to get well and truly baked. It really was a wonderful experience and a great way to get a different view of the harbour which is an incredibly busy place. Apart from the pleasure trips like ours there are the ferries across to other areas in the harbour (my sister Gill used to catch a ferry from Neutral Bay to Circular Quay every day as part of her commute when she lived in Australia) a couple of massive cruise liners were setting off, there was a Hobie Cat race taking place alongside a race for 18ft skiffs, jetboats to frighten the living daylights out of tourists, kayakers dodging in and out of the larger vessels, water taxis, private yachts, superyachts and motor launches and the occasional person fishing all topped off with sea planes flying above on sightseeing trips! Powered vessels are meant to give way to those driven by sail but, as far as I could see, size seemed to be the determining factor, if one of the ferries or a cruise liner saw something in its path, sail or no sail, it sounded its horn and expected all other harbour users to scatter. I suppose there must be some order to it but it looks like chaos.
After the trip we took the ferry over to Manly to see if it had changed in the ten years since we last saw it. When we got there we found Manly and neighbouring Shelly beaches closed although you would not know it. In spite of signs on both beaches saying SHARK SIGHTED TODAY, ENTER WATER AT YOUR OWN RISK, there were loads of people swimming and surfing, many allowing their children to swim!