The Flat Friends Visited Sydney, Australia

#flathal #flatstanleyproject #sydney #australia

Sydney is the biggest city in Australia, with approximately 5.25 million calling it home. That’s almost the same number of people as call the entire country of New Zealand home!

The harbor in Sydney is one of its real highlights. We sailed in too early for it to be considered bright (before sunrise), so the Flat Friends started their day by clearing immigration and looking at photos friends took on previous visits to the city. (They shared these photos with us!)

Every passenger had to appear before the immigration officials, passport in hand, to be officially checked and processed into Australia. No one could return to the ship until every passenger had gotten off the ship and it was “cleared”. Each country has its own policies and procedures for the ship to follow.

The Flat Friends had fun chatting in the terminal with other passengers while we waited for the official thumbs up, all good.

The ship is staying overnight in Sydney, and tomorrow a friend is going on the bridge climb, walking up the side of the famous “coat hanger“ bridge. Would you climb the bridge?

Sunset sail away from Sydney, under the coat hanger bridge and past the world famous Sydney Opera House.

We arrived in Sydney early one morning, before sunrise, and the ship didn’t sail out until sunset the next day! As we prepared to depart, passengers were talking about not just visiting or touring the Opera House, but having the opportunity to see a performance! Others recounted their bridge climb, attached to a safety cable, as they went up and over the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, locally known as the coat hanger.

Sailing under the bridge made it clear just what an adventure they’d been on— then we saw a group “mid-climb”, reaching the top just in time to see the sunset! From our perspective they were adventurous silhouettes, with hints of the setting sun behind them.