Dateline – January 21, 2015 – New Zealand and Australia – The Adventure Begins at Doyles

We arrived in Sydney after 24 hours of flight time around 8:30 Tuesday morning.  We traveled to the hotel and met up with our travel friends peter and Bunny Warenski.  We wrote of them in the past as part of our Alaska trip and companions for a month of playing golf on the Robert Trent Jones Alabama Trail in May of 2013.

Tuesday we walked around Sydney and enjoyed lunch overlooking part of the harbor.  Finishing lunch we made it back to the hotel with the idea of staying awake until evening, so we wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night.  We fell soundly asleep around 3:30 and slept until 3 AM.  We stayed up an hour and woke up at 8AM when Pete and Bunny knocked on the door.It was suppose to rain, but it was sunny and just beautiful.  We walked down to the ferry docks and boarded for the harbor tour.  Two outstanding famous sites were immediately in our view:

The Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Harbor Bridge

On to Doyle’s

It was late morning as we headed out on the ferry.  On our last visit to Sydney we were introduced to Doyle’s Restaurant in Watson Bay.  It was time for a revisit and introducing the Warenski’s to one of our most favorite restaurants.  As a side note, John’s nephew Chris Wilson serves on the Coast Guard Ice Breaker Polar Star and was to be in Sydney over Christmas on the Polar Star’s trip to keep shipping lanes open in Antartica.  John’s brother, Will, wanted to send Chris to a great restaurant in Sydney and asked our advice.  We suggested Doyle’s.  Will contacted them and Lisa Doyle set everything up for him.  He had a great meal.  We looked forward to meeting Lisa and saying thank you!

We arrived in Watson Bay before noon and immediately went to Doyle’s and got a reservation for lunch.  We proceeded to visit the whole facility including the Beach Club where David made us some magnificent drinks.  Sitting in the area we were joined by a bug.  Janice exclaimed how beautiful it was and asked the bartender what it was.  We laughed when he said they call it a  “stink bug”.  Whatever you call it, it was pretty.  See we can show you all kinds of “wildlife”!

We were seated at a great table just off the beach and proceeded to have one of the grandest seafood feasts you can imagine.  The staff was fantastic.  Our waitress Bruna took great care of us.  She and her husband Nelson are from Brazil and both work at Doyle’s.  They plan to return to Brazil for a big “family” wedding in two years.  After David’s great cocktails and a few glasses of wine, Peter had us all invited to go to Rio for the wedding.

Lisa Doyle had her niece come out to meet us since she was tied up.  She was very gracious.  Lisa had her give us some wine glasses, which we really appreciated.  If you ever make it to Sydney, make the ferry trip to Watson Bay and visit Doyle’s.  We plan to return to Sydney the end of February and will return ourselves for more great seafood and ambiance.

The ferry trip back to Sydney was beautiful with great views.  Tomorrow we fly to New Zealand!