Palau & Australia : Trip Report

Sydney 2000 Olympics

We planned our trip to Australia and Palau long before the Olympics. Actually, we originally were trying to bypass Sydney completely at the beginning of our trip which overlapped the Olympics but that turned out to be impossible given time and flight constraints.

Since we were going to be there anyway we decided to take in some Olympic events if possible. The popular sports were sold out or extremely expensive but Marjorie at the Bondi Beach Garden "Sweet" where we stayed was kind enough to sit on the phone and get us wanted to watch a sport!

In addition, we were taking the bus from Bondi to downtown Sydney our first day and we happened to notice there was a Women's Cycling event passing through Centennial Park. We found out that the men's even was the following morning so we planned to be there!

We got there early expecting there to be huge crowds but it turns out it wasn't that bad. The course itself was quite long and there was plenty of room along the course for spectators! Best of all it was FREE!

One thing we were very surprised about is how well Sydney handled the crowds at the Olympics. Most of that is due to the Olympic Village itself being so far from the downtown area and thousands of volunteers wearing uniforms available to answer questions or help with getting around the city. In addition, several large cruise ships we docked in Sydney providing additional "hotel rooms" for guests. Most of the ships were rented by large corporations for their guests. IBM, for example, had the ultra luxurious Crystal Harmony rented out for their people! Wow! I counted a total of seven cruise ships docked all around Sydney Harbor.

Sydney also set up viewing areas in various parks around the city. The viewing areas had large TV screens showing current events, shops selling Olympic memorabilia and live entertainment. We saw quite a few atheletes and others involved in the Olympics walking around in these areas.

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We arrived at Centennial Park early with our breakfast sandwiches and hot coffee. It had rained the previous night and was a little chilly so we got a spot at a tight hairpin turn hoping for some "action". The race itself was something like 240km long and each lap took about half an hour so the whole race was expected to last over 5 hours! We certainly weren't going to stand around that long.

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	The following is some video I took of the cyclists coming by us. The first video is around the hairpin turn near the beginning of the race so they are very bunched up. The second is on a fairly straight part of the course a couple laps later so the cyclists are a bit more spread out. QuickTime Movie - Approx 1.2M RealVideo - 56K modem or faster stream (21 seconds) QuickTime Movie - Approx 2.5M RealVideo - 56K modem or faster stream (43 seconds)

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If you see a hot dog stand in Sydney, do NOT be tempted to get one. Lily got one when we were getting hungry and it was just about the worst hot dog we've ever had! Really disgusting!

Between laps we walked around the park and just listened for the sound of the TV helicopters which signal the approach of the cyclists. The park itself is really nice and was built for Sydney's Centennial celebration. We checked out some of the unique Australian wildlife found around the park.

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Later the same day we attended the Men's Indoor Volleyball Quarterfinals. The owner of the B&B we were staying at was kind enough to get the tickets for us before we even arrived in Sydney!

The event was at the Sydney Entertainment Center in Darling Harbor. Since we bought our tickets days ahead of time we didn't even know who would be playing yet. Turns out that since we bought our tickets so soon we got great seats in the 4th row! We watched two matches, first we saw Brazil vs. Argentina, then the Netherlands vs. Yugoslavia. Turns out Yugoslavia was the team that went on to win the gold medal in this event.

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	Brazil even had a cheerleader! Move your mouse on him to see his moves.