Up at the crack of dawn (well before actually - 3:00am) to catch the flight from Christchurch to Sydney. We had to pay another tourist tax on the way out, the Christchurch departure fee that wasn't included in our 'all taxes prepaid' flights. Happily the flight was uneventful and we landed in Sydney on time. Now I was not quite sure what to expect of Sydney because I have heard so many great things about it and met many people who rank it as their favourite city. First impressions were not so good as the minibus driver took us the decidedly un-scenic route. However once we reached our hotel at The Rocks I had cheared up a bit. The Rocks is a really nice tourist area in Sydney and is the site of the first European settlements. Luckily the hotel let us check in early so we could go for a shower and dump the bagage. Then it was off for a bit of exploration. We spent a very pleasant day looking at the various obvious sights (Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Darling Harbour etc) under beautiful blue skies and 27C sunshine. In the evening we popped down to a nice restaurant in the same area as the hotel (but at the water's edge) and had a nice meal including kangaroo and crocodile satay.
