Note: I originally thought I’d be able to batch the various parts of the Australia trip into multi-day-spanning posts, but it turns out that we packed quite a lot into both the traveling and the first day in Sydney. I’ll probably manage it better for future days!

It’s Thursday morning, we’re finally in Sydney after leaving London Tuesday evening. This travel-across the world thing is a bit time-consuming.

The hotel is nice and close to the train station so we drop our stuff – it’s far too early at 8am to get our room yet – and head back out again. We’ve both skipped plane breakfast so it’s time to find some jet lag fuel. Unsurprisingly this is a need that city centres are very prepared to cater for and soon we’re tucking in to a well-needed fried feast.

Definitely more alive after that, we can actually think about the rest of the day now! It’s just after 9, we’ve got a fancy dinner booked for 6, and some of the afternoon will be getting into our hotel room to shower and otherwise de-grime. But not sleep. Not allowed to sleep. Must. Not. Sleep. *yawn*

Erin has never been to Sydney either (bad Australian/good Melburnian spotted?) so the city is all new for both of us. We wander in the vague direction of a viewing point across Sydney Harbour, taking in a couple of nice gardens and parks along the way. It’s very leisurely; we’re reasonably confident our legs are still attached but only by visually checking. You would think sitting down for 24 hours would be good recharge time, but no. Also, Sydney has hills.

I appear to have taken some of these pictures crookedly; I’m blaming jet lag for that as well!

It’s a very nice day (well, too hot for me but anyway) and the parks, gardens and harbour are very pretty. The Opera House looks quite nice, too, but if anything it seems smaller than I expected from the many times I’ve seen it on screen. Erin tells me that apparently the bridge is also in most of those media shots but for some reason I have no memory of seeing it before. It’s very impressive. I like bridges.

We have a good solid lunch of icecream; delicious. The apple pie flavour in particular was excellent.

From there it’s back to the hotel for the afternoon; shower, recover, relax. Keep those eyes open, though. No, seriously. I’ll poke you. Sleep, you shalt not pass. This struggle lasted for a couple of hours; it was time to head out again for dinner before either of us succumbed, nice going!

So yes, fancy dinnertime! Erin had worked some long term preparatory magic and had somehow accumulated enough points in the Shangri La hotel membership club to assure us of a free dinner at their expensive 36th-floor restaurant overlooking Sydney Harbour. The food itself isn’t supposed to be the main draw but the views were renowned.

I felt a little bit underdressed in my (nice!) jeans and t-shirt going up the lift with another couple who were clearly dressed to the nines, but we didn’t get turned away at the door and we were instead escorted to our table overlooking the bay.

The view was incredible.

Somewhat surprisingly, at least from what had been rumoured, dinner was also amazing – possibly the best meal I’ve ever had. Every course was delicious so I’m not going to say that for each one individually!

Before we ordered (and more afterwards), unpictured: various types of bread (mmm walnut bread).

First up, a complimentary amuse-bouche: apple caviar with goat’s cheese.

Then came our starters. Erin had the courgette velouté with bits, the soup poured over the bits only after it was all described. I had the quail confit with black pudding.

Mains; Erin had the pan-fried gnocchi with a tomato and olive sauce, I had barramundi and oxtail with fennel and shallot. (Also potatoes, that’s mandatory.)

We ordered desserts, and then were surprised by getting a complimentary dessert while waiting: apple jelly, passion fruit sorbet with an apple-flavoured Italian meringue.

The ordered desserts arrived; a banoffee with caramelised banana, and a chocolate mousse with brownie bits, cherry and vanilla icecream, cacao nibs.

We thought we were done, but there was one more course: a caramel toffee, mini brownie and chocolate truffle each.

It’s dark outside now, some more of the view.

I left that restaurant on a high, no pun intended (but appreciated now that I’ve noticed it!). It was head and shoulders above any other restaurant experience I can remember. They could easily have just traded off the incredible view, but not only was the food we ordered excellent they also went the extra mile with the included added extras. The service was perfect as well. Obviously having vouchers enough to cover it all, tip excepted, was a bonus, but I don’t think it changed the way I felt about the meal.

Like I said – on a high. Erin should do restaurant bookings more often!

We make our way back to the hotel. It’s a 2km walk, but that’s probably exactly what we needed after stuffing our faces.

The day is done, we’ve won the first skirmish with jet lag, now to sleep.