Bet day... from the eyes of Christine

Note from me: Sorry for the super long post... But this was an epic day! 

Also, this day is going to feature a guest blogger in the form of Toby. He'll be putting up a separate post after mine, so you'll get the pleasure of hearing about our adventures from both perspectives. I suspect that if we left the names off each of our posts, you'd still be able to figure out who wrote each one. =)

Every year at Super Bowl time, T and I each pick one of the teams and bet against each other for our team to win. It adds a bit of excitement to a sporting event I might otherwise nap through. This year, the winner got to plan a day of fun and choose all the activities he/she wanted to do in the day. Luckily, I won! This Saturday was a sunny, Indian summer day that got up to around 80 degrees, so I cashed in my reward.

Here's Toby explaining the day. And how excited he is for it.

Here was my general plan for the day:

• Take the train down to Central Station and catch the light rail
• Take the light rail out to the Sydney Fish Market
• Explore the fish markets and then walk to the Anzac Bridge
• After the bridge, walk down to Glebe and eat at one of our favorite spots, Badde Manors
• Walk down through Glebe and catch the light rail back to Central
• Take the train home and evaluate energy levels and enthusiasm for additional activities

I added a little more in the afternoon, so we ended getting a lot of kilometers around Sydney under our belt during the day. 

Light rail & the Sydney Fish Markets

Somehow it had slipped my awareness that Sydney has a light rail system until recently when I read something about it. Of course, since it was something new and unexperienced, I really wanted to go on it. I've also been wanting to go to the Sydney Fish Markets for a while. Because the light rail goes practically to the door of the fish markets, I decided these two things would go hand in hand.

The light rail only has a few selected stops. It's much more charming than the trains and buses, so I liked it immediately.

The light rail goes down by Chinatown and through Pyrmont, so we got to ride past places we've only walked through before. It was kind of nice to get to see it while sitting down.

Then we got to the fish markets. It was pretty quiet since it was early in the morning, but there was still plenty to see.

Inside the main building there were several big shops: most of them sold seafood, but there was also a bakery, a gourmet grocer, and a produce market.

Behind the markets was an eating area by the harbor and a fleet of fishing boats.

You can see the Anzac bridge in some of the pictures. As much as T might've hoped otherwise, this did not count as "seeing the bridge."

Anzac Bridge

For a while now, I've been wanting to go out and see this bridge. We can see it all the time from various points in the city, and I was under it when I went dragonboat racing. But it's not very convenient to get to by public transportation so it's been languishing on my To Do list for a while. I was pretty excited it finally happened!

Unlike the Harbor Bridge, bikes and pedestrians share a lane on the bridge. So we had to stay on our toes a little more. Also, there was work being done on the fence alongside the bridge, so we couldn't get a very good view over the side. But that's OK, because the view of the bridge itself was awesome.

Glebe

At this point, T had been hanging on a while to the promise of a brunch at Badde Manors, so it was time to head up to Glebe and get some food. It was about a 15 - 20 minute walk from the bridge. We got to see parts of the city we haven't seen before, so it went by really quickly.

Then it was breakfast time! We love Badde Manors because the food is delicious and it's all vegetarian! So it's a unique experience to open a menu and know we can choose anything we see. =)

A table full of happiness

After breakfast, it was time to make our way up through Glebe. There were markets on, as well as lots of quirky shops to check out.

Also, some cute pubs...

And flower shops....

And a bookshop that has something for everyone.

We also came across this compelling advertisement... There were pictures of furniture stapled to some boards in front of a demolished building, and written in chalk on the sidewalk was a message: "Sale Back Soon."

Rozelle Bay

We took Glebe Point Road all the way to the end - which meant we ended up down at Rozelle Bay. This also meant that we could see the Anzac Bridge (and where we started our day) from the other side. It was lovely & sunny, so lots of people were out on the boardwalk along the bay.

Bonus dog pic #1! He got a little squished up because he moved during the shot

Bonus dog pic #2!

Then we headed back for the light rail station. T was pretty triumphant that he'd made it through the day up to this point.

Closing out the day

After a little of this:

We packed up a picnic, walked down to the ferry, and headed over to Balmain to enjoy the lovely afternoon. Some of us were still pretty tired.

The ferry ride helped a little bit.

A little snack....

And happiness levels are restored!

It was a perfect day to be out enjoying the park at Balmain!

All-in-all, I would rate this day 12,000 on a scale of 5,000!

A couple bonus pics

Did I mention that Toby was with me during the day and working really hard to photobomb as many pics as possible?

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