I was quite happy to wander, muse and listen while the photographic indulgences were indulged, but was regularly asked to take the odd happy snap for visiting travellers who wanted pictorial evidence they'd made it to the iconic landmark.
Madam's plan, based on a comment from a blog friend, had been to take the ferry to Watson's Bay and bus it back, but after the trip across, seated in the back of the vessel surrounded by people standing to take photos and point out landmarks to each other, there was no way I was going to be doing the landlubber's return trip.
The view from the back was fine, you understand, but would have been better without the bodies around me. A seat on the upper deck, I reasoned, would give much better views across the water on both sides, which was the way it subsequently turned out.
Given my pre-existing concert and winery agenda, I try to stay out of close involvement with the rest of the planning, limiting the input to the odd suggestion here and there (as in coming up with Spice I Am from the old iPad Urbanspoon app), so the coincidence of Watson's Bay and Doyle's Seafood Restaurant had slipped under the old guard.
Things didn't remain that way, however, and as we passed the establishment en route to South Head I thought that it just might be possible to snaffle a table looking out over the bay if we were right on the doorstep bang on opening time.