Sydney - Sunday evening

So after breakfast, we headed out as planned for the Opera House. We registered for the tour and spent about 30 minutes walking around the entire outside, taking lots of pictures. There was some sort of swim race in the harbor so we also got to watch that. The tour was great - the inside of the Opera House is very impressive. Of the two main concert halls, the big hall seats 2700 people and the smaller one seats 1500 - and the Opera House hosts 2500 performances a year!
We then took a taxi to Bondi Beach and had lunch at Icebergs which is a pretty trendy spot with an unbelievable view down on the water and beach. The entire side of the restaurant facing the beach is windows. We spent most of the time watching the surfers! After lunch, we walked down to the beach which was pretty crowded since it was in the 80s and very sunny on the official first day of fall - everyone was getting in one more day of sunbathing! Interestingly (at least to me) was the fact that no one at all was sitting under umbrellas and I saw very few people even applying sunscreen! Craig said he read that Australians have (one of) the highest incidences of skin cancer in the world. Mom- you would be proud of us for slathing on the sunscreen in the midst of that! Craig went in the water with the masses of people while I sat on our hotel borrowed towel and people watched. They do take the lifesavers (lifeguards) very seriously given the potential for shark attacks. There is constant helicopter, jet ski, and boat patrol and lots of guys on the beach. There was a shark attack on a surfer only two weeks ago and the water remains very warm and fish-filled which can translate into lots of sharks. Many of the beaches have nets around the swim areas (not Bondi). In fact, we just turned on the news and there is a report that there was a shark attack at a different popular beach this morning. Yikes!

After relaxing on Bondi, we spent another hour or two walking on the coastal path and visiting a couple other beaches (Bronte and Tamarama) - less crowded than Bondi but generally smaller and rockier....
Tonight we are going to a restaurant called Pier which specializes in seafood. We have one more full day in Sydney before heading to Melbourne....