Sydney was lovely.  We left a gorgeous day in Melbourne, the first blue skies we'd seen for what felt like ages, and landed to gray skies and the threat of rain.  But by the time we'd settled in at the hotel and I could head out for afternoon, the worst of the clouds had cleared and it was quite a pleasant day.  

The hotel was near the Botanic Gardens, so I headed there to wander around.  The gardens are gorgeous - it's possible in some corners to forget that you're even in a city, but then you'll come round a bend and the view opens up to the skyline behind the trees, which is a striking sight:

Eventually I found my way down to the waterfront path through the gardens to a site known as Mrs MacQuarie's Chair.  All along the path, there's a stunning view of the Opera House framed by the Harbour Bridge: 

After having seen so many pictures of the Opera House, all of them better than any I've taken, I was sort of expecting that seeing it in person wouldn't really be a big deal, that media saturation would've robbed the image of its power.  But it wasn't the case at all.  The whole site has been designed for maximum impact, and the Opera House changes shape depending on the angle from which it's viewed.  It's captivating. 

It also plays hide-and-seek with you as you walk through the Botanic Gardens, cropping up behind the jacaranda trees that bloom so vividly violet-blue that they were visible from the air as we approached the city: 

 

I wasn't sorry to get back to Melbourne - the thesis awaits, after all - but I'm definitely looking forward to going back to Sydney at some point to explore it more thoroughly.