A Surprise in Sydney (Summary)

It was my Mum's 60th birthday recently and so to celebrate, she, Dad and my sister, Megan, booked a trip to Sydney. While Mum and Dad planned their fun week away, my sister and I made plans of our own.

The plan was that I would fly into Sydney in secret and surprise Mum and Dad on the Friday and then we'd have a lovely family weekend together.

Well, the surprise worked. I flew into Sydney at around midday on Friday, then caught the train to the hotel. I had just enough time to unpack and freshen up before I had to get to circular quay where I would meet Mum, Dad and Megs. I got there with plenty of time to spare, as they were running late. I was waiting at the Manly Ferry Wharf for them as they came running up to catch the ferry that was departing in 5 minutes. Megan saw me first and came and gave me a hug. Mum ran straight past me. lol! She wasn't expecting to see me, but she realised what was going on when she turned to see why Megs and Dad had stopped. They certainly looked surprised and very happy that I'd made the trip to Sydney for the weekend.

It was really hard to keep the secret, but it was well worthwhile to see the look on their faces when all was revealed. :)

So, I'm going to use this post as a summary of the weekend and then I'll go into more detail and post some photos in subsequent blog posts.

We stayed at Sebel Pier One under the harbour bridge and it was lovely. The room was nice, the service was good and the view from the bar was lovely.

On the Friday, after the surprise had been revealed we all caught the ferry to Manly and spent the afternoon there. We wandered, had coffee, people watched and caught up on news. We shared stories of how many pairs of shoes and handbags we brought with us, much to the amusement of the men sitting in front of us on the ferry. In the evening, we went for dinner at a lovely Itallian Restaurant near the hotel.

On Saturday, we had breakfast in the Rocks markets and then spent the day on the harbour. All I needed was a 1 day travel pass for the normal ferries, because Mum, Dad and Megs have been to Sydney enough times to act as tour guides.

In the evening we went to Neil Perry's latest Sydney Restaurant called Spice Temple. I highly recommend this restaurant. The food, service wine and atmosphere were all amazing. We had the banquet and all the dishes were amazing. The flavours were fantastic. When we finished up our meal and walked out, Neil Perry was sitting at the bar. I still can't believe we didn't walk up to him and say hello and thank you.

On Sunday we went to Taronga Zoo. It's awesome. The animal displays are wonderful, but the best thing about the zoo is the amazing view you get from it back across the harbour towards the opera house and the bridge.

I was sad to leave everyone on Sunday afternoon, but unfortunately I had to make the plane trip back to reality. Megs and I made the journey to the airport together and then parted ways when my plane started boarding.

I had an amazing weekend and took lots of photos that I'm going to bore you with when I get back online tomorrow.