We did an overnight stay at Sidney. One of the most iconic structures is the Sidney bridge. If you look extremely closely, you can see some dots above the bridge’s main arch. That is not an artifact. One can do a “bridge climb” that walks across the arch (for an extravagant fee). We didn’t do that, but we did walk along the pedestrian sidewalk at street level. We didn’t go all the way across, but we went far enough to catch an unusual angle on Sidney’s other iconic structure.

To get this shot, I snaked my phone under the fence, being very careful not to drop the phone. We took a tour of the opera house. It’s much larger than I imagined.

It’s worthwhile to include a more traditional view. The curve of the roof is supposed to represent the curve of the sails on some of the recreational boats in the harbor. The steps are supposed to be an echo of pre-Columbian temples — go up the steps, have a spiritual experience.

We took a tour of the Opera house. The building is stunning inside as well as out. Here’s a pic of the symphony stage. You can see some of the organ pipes in the back wall. I have it on good authority that the organ can fill the room. Count all the chairs on stage if you can. One of the few pieces that requires this large an orchestra is Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. I don’t like that piece, so there was no chance we were going to attend a performance. But wouldn’t it be cool to hear Saint-Saëns organ symphony in this venue?

Another highlight was the Hyde Park Barracks. This is another prison settlement site. The exhibit was inside the barracks building. They issued audio headphones that sensed which exhibit you were near, and offered a first-person dramatization of a typical story for that exhibit. We topped our time in Sidney by attending mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

We have three sea days to get to New Zealand. The sea is quite lively with 12 foot swells. We are experiencing a lot of motion. I woke up several times during the night as normally inanimate objects skittered around. Hopefully the sea will settle down some tomorrow.