Day 64: 20231126 Sunday, November 26, 2023- Sydney Opals and the Rocks
The breakfast buffet at the Hyatt Regency is a bit like being back on the cruise ships, with all manner of choices and a busy buffet. Once we had tanked up we set off to hit a few more sights in Sydney before the last leg of our cruise begins. We started off by going back to the Queen Victoria Building (QVB) to have a look at the Christmas tree. The mall was fortunately a lot less crowded than the first time we tried to enter it. There are at least 3 levels of shops in the building and a pair of unusual clocks hanging from the ceiling.
In the center is a Christmas Tree that spans all 3 of the upper levels, suspended from the ceiling so that shoppers can walk underneath it on the ground floor. It is an artificial tree, as are all the Christmas trees we have seen in stores here in Australia.
Across the street from the QVB is the Volle jewelry store which Ivy had recommended for Australian opals and pink diamonds. When we entered the shop, there was a tiny room in the corner of the store with a couple of counters. We were greeted pleasantly by the staff and after mentioning that Ivy had referred us and we gave her a card that Ivy had given us, we were invited to go into an adjacent show room, separated from the tiny room by a secure electronically locked door. The show room was a large room with elaborate Victorian decor and contained many display cases of very expensive jewelry including Australian diamonds, pearls and opal.
We were then invited downstairs into a theater decorated like a mine entrance to view a movie introducing us to Australian Opals, pearls and diamonds. Having been to Kuri Bay and Broome, we were already familiar with the pearls, but we also learned that nearly 90% of the world’s gem quality opal is mined in Australia, and a very rare pink diamond is unique to a mine in South Australia which closed down in 2018 after the diamonds had been mined out. There are 3 main kinds of Australian opal- white, black and boulder. Opals were formed by the passage of silicate rich water through various strata. If conditions are right, the silicate precipitates into the strata. If it is sandstone, you get a white opal. If it’s in ironstone, you get black opal, and if it’s in another igneous boulder, you get the boulder opal. There are some pretty nice specimens of these agates and if weren’t already struggling with getting our luggage weight down, we might have been tempted to pick up a nice specimen, but we left empty-handed.
From the QVB we strolled through the plaza for the Sydney Tower Eye, which is like Sydney’s Space Needle. The base is a huge shopping mall complex which we didn’t mind cutting through because of the air conditioning, but we passed on going up into the Tower Eye. As we navigated our way through Sydney’s downtown core, we frequently would cut through department stores and malls to enjoy the air conditioning because it was close to 80˚F and fairly muggy today despite scattered clouds and a light breeze. Along the way we did see some unique tourist souvenirs.
Our next stop was a store called David Jones, which is Australia’s Nordstroms or Macy’s. They had a series of window displays illustrating a children’s book “The Twelve Dogs of Christmas”, each with colorful animated scenes from the book. It was all very cute.
From there we walked down to a little hole in the wall Chinese Noodle Shop that we had walked past last night but found to be closed. It is a family owned shop where we were promptly and nicely greeted and sat at a table in the back. We ordered Xiao long bao, pan fried pork dumplings and lamb buns. As we waited for our food to come out, the restaurant began to fill up and all the customers were Chinese, so that was a favorable sign. When the food did come out, it was hot, plentiful and tasty. The portions were so ample that we had enough left over for a future snack or meal.
The last stop of our Sydney tour was the Rocks, a historic neighborhood in the shadow of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, where they have a weekend market. They also have the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) which has free admission to its main galleries, so we took an air conditioning break and sauntered through the galleries.
The weekend market was very much like most art festivals and public markets with lots of vendors offering local wares. And like most art festivals and popular markets, it was crowded and hot, which is why we tend to avoid them, but it was interesting to see the Australian take on their T-shirts, posters and handicrafts with lots of Koalas and Kangaroos. After rounding Dawe's Point we headed back home to the Hyatt in time to grab a quick shower and nap before the official orientation for the Outback Adventure Tour.
At the orientation we met the rest of the tour group, with the exception of one couple that was on a late arriving flight. All are from the US and a surprising number of them had attempted to do this cruise tour in the past, but were forced to reschedule or had the tour canceled by the pandemic. Although the Princess cruise tour itinerary has activities planned for each day, there are a couple of free periods available for optional activities, so we were given an opportunity to reserve some of these in Uluru which are organized by the resort, not Princess. We signed up for an optional camel ride around Uluru since Janet really wanted to ride camels on the beach in Broome, but instead we did a bus tour.
We finished organizing our bags to get our suitcases under the weigh limit and had jam packed the two duffel bags we had brought for emergencies. Those went out to go into storage until we return to Sydney from Uluru. Tomorrow we board a plane back to Cairns.
