After breakfast, we went to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Mrs Macquerie's Point proved to be an excellent spot for pictures of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Unfortunately, it was a cloudy day, so the pictures all look gloomy.



After the shops opened, we went to buy a See Sydney Card. For more details, go to this webpage. We bought a 3 day one, and immediately booked a HarbourJet ride and the Magistic Cruise so we could get as much out of the card as possible.


The cruise took us all the way to the mouth of the harbour, where we could see the ocean. As it was a weekend, there were many other boats out there too. There was a large LCD screen showing us the path of the boat in the cabin. Kev asked for an alcoholic drink on board, and the person asked him for ID. Kev asked him for the minimum age, but the guy wouldn't say. In the end kev showed him his 11B and got the drink. It was pretty funny, he really looks younger than he is.


After the hour long cruise, we went back to the Harbour Bridge, climbing the stairs right up to the top of the southeast pylon. There are lots of stairs, but there are also resting areas for those who can't do it in one shot. There was a great view at the top. Timo has requested some pictures of people, instead of all scenery, so here's one to satisfy him. This is kev fiddling with this camera at the pylon lookout while chris looks on.

We spent quite some time up there, and had to rush off to Darling Harbour on foot to catch our HarbourJet ride. As we all took the ride, I have no pictures of it. It was exhilirating zooming across the harbour in a speedboat at high speeds. The skipper also did quite a lot of 270 deg turns. Even with the wet weather gear provided, we still got wet. We watched the sunset from the speedboat, and by the time we got back to the harbour it was getting dark.


Our last attraction of the day was the Sydney Aquarium, as it is open till 10pm. However, the gift shop was closed. The exhibits are nice and we saw many of the fishes very natural looking tanks. However, the artificial lighting didn't really allow us to see the underwater exhibits very well. Perhaps it looks nice during the day. EDIT: Here's the corrected picture. Thanks to YH for fixing the red eye.

Day 2 was really fruitful, we had gone for 5 attractions, 4 of which are included in the See Sydney Card.