Tuesday, 17 March 2020

March 17 – St. Patrick's Day in Sydney


Today is St. Patrick’s Day.  We get to celebrate a day earlier than Canada. Maybe we can celebrate for two days.

We are staying at the Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel at Circular Quay.  It is a four star hotel about a block from the harbour.  Last night we ate in their Custom House Tavern and we had ribs that could have fed an army.





Tomorrow we were supposed to go Hunter Valley for a wine tour with an independently booked tour.  Unfortunately, the original itinerary issued by Globus was incorrect and today was the free day for independent tours and there were no wine tours to be had.  I guess the Corona virus has lower the demand for these tours and forced the tour operators to cancel their tours.  

Instead we went to the Taronga Zoo in North Sydney. As zoos go this is below average.  I give it high marks for making the enclosures comfortable for the animals, but that means the animals have plenty of spots to hide from the humans.  There were just too many animals that you could not see because the were either hiding or were not in their compound.  There is another major zoo in suburban Sydney, but I had no idea how to get there.























Our schedule for returning to Canada next week starts with a flight to Auckland to catch our flight to Los Angeles. New Zealand’s Corona policy states that anyone entering the country from Australia must be self quarantined for fourteen days. Earlier this morning we went to the New Zealand consulate to see if we would have to be quarantined for fourteen days, given that we would only be in their country overnight.  After several phone calls they told me that immigration would allow travelers who enter their country to self quarantine in a hotel until they leave from the airport.  So were back on schedule.

For supper we went looking for an Irish Pub. We found a couple in the Rocks, which is an restaurant/pub area of Sydney, but they were packed to the rafters with lineups stretching around the block.  It took us about a half an hour of walking and we finally found a pub to eat in.  It was called "The Royal George".  The food was fine, but it may be the noisiest pub we've been in.

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