So yet again, we tried to take the ferry to Kissing Point. Here was our day as planned:
Leave the apartment at 9, eat pancakes at Circular Quay, board a ferry at 10:45 for Kissing Point, explore Kissing Point a bit, head back to Circular Quay, and then head over to Darling Harbour for fireworks and the Vivid Sydney Light Tour.
We left the apartment at planned, but when we got to Circular Quay, the restaurant where we had seen pancakes on the menu was no longer making pancakes (never again, seriously, cross it off the menu). This should have been a red flag for the day that was about to come, but we decided to push on, hoping for better luck at Kissing Point.
We got to the wharf where we were to board the ferry. There was a ferry already docked at the left, but no information on the ferry, and it didn't look like anyone was working the ferry. Another ferry pulled up to the right, and there was information about where it was going and what time, so we decided to board that ferry (probably should have double checked that it was going to Kissing Point).
Nope, this ferry headed straight to Parramatta. Parramatta is about a 90 minute ferry ride away from Sydney. It's so far out of our travel pass that it's nearly $7 to get back. We talked to one of the men on the ferry and he said that if we started running early, the could make a special stop for us at Kissing Point. Alright, this day wasn't a complete bust.
Until we arrived at Parramatta.
There had to have been close to 350 people waiting to get on a ferry that held no where near 350 people. The kind man who once offered to drop us off at Kissing Point now promptly asked us to get off the ferry and join the queue…meaning that we weren't catching that ferry back, and we probably weren't catching a ferry for the next hour (at least, as the ferries only come once an hour).
We all became pretty negative Nancy at this point. There was a sign that said "Map of Parramatta" and pointed. We thought the map would be nearby, so we started looking for it. NOPE! The map of Parramatta was a 10 minute walk. 10 minutes to find a map. We saw many signs pointing to a map, and drawings on the ground of Parramatta's history, and we concluded we would have preferred less signs, more maps, and less drawings, more maps.
Regardless, we finally arrived at the map, and it was also a visitor's center. I decided to kindly as a lady what there was to see in Parramatta since we were stuck there for an hour. She tried to give me every way back to the city instead of telling me what to see. Should she, as a worker at the visitor's center, be trying to encourage us to stay in her city and spend money, instead of giving us every way possible back to Sydney?? We finally ended up at this park, and boy was that park a disappointment. Everything was dead, so we tried to go to the Rose Gardens. Again, it's winter, it's all dead! Everything was dead! Eventually, we caught a train back to the city (after paying our $7). 5 hours later and we still hadn't seen Kissing Point.
Later that evening, we decided to head to Darling Harbour to watch fireworks. Firework shows in Australia are incredibly short (5 minutes) since they happen quite frequently. Darling Harbour did look spectacular though, so I was glad we were able to see them. After the fireworks, we started on this Vivid Sydney Lighted walk tour, a tour that represents Sydney's past, present, and future. There were 25 stops along this tour, some more interesting than others. Overall, it was a good night, at least compared to the treachery of the day.
Just another day lost in Sydney…today I get to find my other internship site. Oh joy!
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