Ferry ride to Parramatta

On my rainy Sunday, I decided I had to get out of the apartment for a little while. I always have a hard time figuring out what to do when it's raining, since all my mental plans throughout the week involve lovely sunny days. But on this day, I decided to do something I've had in the back of my mind for a while. I decided to take the ferry from Circular Quay to Parramatta, which is a city in western Sydney.

Parramatta is far inland, up on the Parramatta River. The trip from Circular Quay actually takes an hour and a half, with a bunch of stops at little towns along the way. 

The ferry ride to Parramatta takes over an hour. It goes under bridges that I've never seen or been on. 

I'd also never seen the Dame Edith Walker Hospital either. While we were cruising by, I googled what this lovely building was, and learned that it was an estate built in the 1800s by some of the very wealthy people of early Sydney. But it was given to charity in the 1930s and now it's a hospital and medical offices. 

There were lots of interesting boats and boat-related things along the way. 

A naval boat anchored in the harbour

Cute dockside buildings and a yellow ferry

If you can afford to live by the river, you can probably afford a boat too

A rowing club

An interesting looking boathouse - with a buck on the roof, of course

Toward the end of the ride, the river got really narrow. Ferries have to go one at a time down the pass, so we waited for a ferry to come through before we entered it. 

And then, we reached the end of the river! The river flows on through Parramatta, but this is the view at the ferry stop. 

And at the end of the day back in Sydney, there were signs of support for France all around.