Darling Harbour Feb. 16

February 16, 2015

This morning after breakfast we checked out of our hotel and moved to the group hotel which is on Darling Harbor, a cove just west of the cove we had been on previously.  Many of the 23 people traveling on this Road Scholar trip came in on an overnight flight from Los Angeles and arrived at the airport at 9:00 AM.  They toured some of the southern suburbs (including Bondi Beach) on the way to the hotel, and we all met for lunch at 1:00.  It seems like a congenial group, but some people were so tired that it was hard to see the personalities. 

After lunch we took a long walking tour of Darling Harbor.  This area is not nearly as upscale as the area where we’d been, but it looks like that will be changing soon as there is a massive building project underway to build a world-class convention center right on the harbor.  We were told the cost will be 3 Billion Australian dollars.  Wow.  Of course that’s only 2.3 Billion US. 

Here’s a current view of the harbor:

You can see a bridge across the harbor which used to be the major road, but a highway alongside the harbor has replaced it and the old bridge has become a pedestrian bridge:

  

After walking the harbor we walked into downtown, and came to the QVB about which I wrote yesterday.  I hadn’t been able to get a good photo of the outside but I was today:

There’s a wonderful story about wanting a statue of Queen Victoria to honor her and to mark the site, and finding one stashed away, not on view, in a small Irish town (where the monarchy is not in favor).  They were happy to unload it and get some money, and the Aussies got a nice statue for little cost.

We’ll have dinner together soon, and then there are no plans for the evening in sympathy with the folks who just arrived.  We do start with an after-breakfast lecture at 8 AM tomorrow, however.  More then.