SYDNEY - AUSTRALIA ( PART 1 )

27th - 30th Aug 2011

Customs officials searching for cocaine.

Got into Sydney OK, despite no criminal record. It really is a question they ask on the entry form "do you have a criminal record?". I wasn't sure how to answer because ( as the old joke goes ) I wasn't sure if it was still a requirement.
Myself and the delectable Tiziana got a taxi to the Seaman's Mission. The Bangladeshi taxi driver drove us both mad because we couldn't understand what he was saying and he got lost. He gave us the Sydney A to Z street map to read for him! He managed to take a lot of money from us nevertheless. Tiziana went off to her accomodation in Kings Cross ( a place where, it is rumoured, for a financial consideration, there are many ladies who will become temporarily very friendly. Tiziana was happily unaware of this, I hasten to add ) and I went to mine, the YHA near the central station.



Left: The way in. Port Jackson aka Sydney Harbour, and I'm not sure what the technical difference is. The narrow entrance to the east in the distance leads this way towards the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge ( to the left and out of sight ). Botany Bay where the first ships from England arrived in 1788 is about 10 miles to the south, near the airport.
The docks in the centre form the Naval base at Wooloomooloo. The Aborigine name Wooloomooloo means ' Sheep going to the lavatory makes a noise like a cow going to the lavatory'.






Right: Looking east towards the iconic Sydney Opera House. I expect such stars as Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Rolf Harris have performed here.
This controversial building was completed vastly over budget in 1973. It is still subject to large ongoing repair and renovation works.






Left: The Sydney Harbour Bridge, looking west from the Opera House. A local told me that this is the tallest and widest iron bridge in the world. The iron was imported from Middlesborough and completed in 1932. The vast stone built towers at each end were put there just to make the bridge look more 'solid' to appease the concerns of the locals at the time. They are not load bearing.







Right: For $200 you can take a guided walk, strung together, up to the top of one of the arches...they were at it all day, like ants. This is not NZ so there was no bungy jump off the top. Apparently there is a marvellous view from the top but you are not allowed to take cameras with you and are even breathalysed before you set out. Rather defeats the object of the idea if you ask me.







Left:....and for absolutely nothing, no breathalyser, no  effort, to get the same view and take a photo, just take a picture of the advertising poster. Saves a lot of time, effort and money.









Plenty of walking around the harbour and Circular Quay area. Very attractive, with some expensive watering holes. Actually, for Brit tourists, Oz is rather expensive; more so than NZ even! During my tour of Oz I hope to see many native things including; boomerangs, kangaroos, billabongs, wicheti grubs, people wearing bush-hats with corks attached possibly even wrestling crocodiles, dingos, and abos playing didgeridoos. Hit lucky with that on day 1. This didgeridoo artiste on the quayside was playing a selection of three, and they were amplified. By crikey those things, like bagpipes, are serious outdoor weapons. What a racket. Indoors you most certainly didgeridon't.




A trendy area next to Circular Quay is called the Rocks. This is the place where the original inhabitants of Sydney set up house. It provides an international  variety of restaurants. This one ( left ) is the Lowenbrau Keller and had a sehr amusink oompah band mit lederhosen......









.

.....und alpenhorn Musik mit .......














.......viele wunderschon frauleins mit grosse knockeren und Steins des Bier. They are obviously keen for the customers to 'try their pork knuckles'.  Tempting fate there I feel.









On the recommendation of an Austrian friend, Herr Ubersturmbahnfuhrer Christian von S, I visited the Fortune of War Hotel ( George Street/Circular Quay ). They have a 'trad' jazz band that plays on Sunday afternoons called Robber's Dogs ( right ).  They were excellent. Note the 'beer glass holders' on the music stands. Interestingly, their leader, on percussion and washboard, is called Bill and is 80 years old. I'm not sure if he is the oldest, but they were cracking good. There is hope for us all.


For such a large city ( pop 5.2 million including the suburbs ) Sydney is surprisingly walkable. The city centre ( called the CBD...and I'll return to that later ) is compact and contains much of what there is for us tourists to see. It includes the places I have mentioned plus Darling Harbour ( redeveloped for tourists for the city 'bicentennial' in 1988 ), not to be confused with Oxford Street ( where rainbow coloured flags are on display everywhere and one is not out of place 'mincing' about doing tea-pot impressions ), King's Cross ( 'The Cross', with plenty of red light bulbs glowing at night ), Hyde Park ( north and south ), the Botanic Gardens, China Town and lots more. Incidently, I noticed that the Aussies are remarkably obedient to pedestrian traffic lights and stand for ages on the verge of a totally deserted street waiting for the little man to go green before they cross, and look daggers at sensible people like me who just cross when nothing is coming. I thought it was only Germans who did that. They would probably cross if the little man went green and there was an out of control 10 ton truck bearing down on them ( "aaaarrrrgggh....but vee vas in zee right!" would be their last words ). I actually saw that happen in Hannover, a long time ago.
Much of the city is named after influential personalities of it's British colonial start in life, and Victorian successors.







Herself on George Street, the main CBD artery, pointing a stick at someone. I'm not sure what the poster behind is supposed to signify.













Right: Darling Harbour which until 1836 was a thriving port for the export of wool. With the wool came rats, and with the rats came the plague and the place was effectively shut down and became almost derelict. It was renovated in 1988 ( the bicentennial ) and geared to tourist attractions and bars and restaurants. A monorail runs over the Pyrmont bridge with the Maritime Museum on the far side and the Aquarium on the near side... I chose to visit the Aquarium.





Lots of fish and no effing seals. On entry the charming lady at the ticket desk said it would be OK for me to take in my bag and camera. I asked if it would be OK for me to take in my fishing rod. That flummoxed her a bit. She asked "what do you mean?" I said I had a collapsible one in my bag and I knew they had lots of fish in there. She looked at me rather strangely and called her colleague over. I asked  them how many fish were in the aquarium. She said "I don't know, millions probably". I said they wouldn't miss a few then. Luckily they had a good sense of humour. I think I am becoming a bit of a tourist from hell.


The first things I saw swimming around in there were some duck-billed platypuses. Extraordinary creatures! I didn't know that the male platypus had venomous spikes behind his hind webbed feet. I got some pics, but they were poor and the bloody things wouldn't keep still, or hid behind underwater tree roots.




Right: Believe it or not this thing is a fish, about 18 inches long, and it swam quite fast. It is a leafy sea dragon. It takes the art of camouflage to a ridiculous extreme.











Left: Quite a large octopus. We were informed that these creatures are intelligent, so they give them toys to play with. Wasn't it one of these that predicted, with uncanny accuracy, the results of the last football World Cup? Perhaps they will have one on stand-by to do the honours for the forthcoming Rugby World Cup.









Dotted around the aquarium were various large models of humans and creatures, like this camel ( right ) made entirely out of lego. This one was about six feet tall. Nothing to do with fish, but quite cleverly made. They had glued the lego bits firmly together, I discovered.






In parts of the aquarium one walked around and under very large fish such as this shark ( a grey reef shark, I think ) with very large teeth. I missed their feeding time. There were enormous rays and other vast underwater creatures all of the type one would not wish to meet face to face in the open sea.
Part of the display was a remarkable reconstruction of  coral on the Great Barrier Reef, including it's toothy denizens which one saw nose to nose ( with six inches of glass in between thankfully ), so that means there is now no point in getting my feet wet to see the lethal creatures in the wild.





Right: This thing is a dugong. About ten feet long, it is, apparently, harmless and in the wild lives on sea grass.  There were divers in the water playing with them. In captivity they feed them exclusively on Cos lettuce. One dugong consumes 50kg of soggy Cos lettuce per day. I asked if they might enjoy a ham sandwich occasionally, but no, they only like lettuce. Not much fun being a dugong.







There were lots of cruise ships of exotic design in Darling Harbour, most doing cruises around the Sydney Harbour area. This one ( left ) was of particularly interesting appearance. I think it was called Starship Enterprise. Several old looking paddle-steamers and other flash looking boats were on parade.










I was staying at the southern end of George Street, near China Town. There is a large Chinese population in Sydney. There is therefore a myriad of excellent ( if rather expensive ) Chinese restaurants. This ( right ) is some sort of 'sacred' Chinese tree, known as the Golden Tree. Nobody seemed to know what it represented. Wealth, maybe.










Left: Lots of useful facilities were on offer ( left ). I didn't try this one.
Other observations included the fact that there are many establishments in Sydney ( and maybe throughout Oz for all I know ) which call themselves 'hotels', but stopped being hotels eons ago. They are now, for the most part, just bars. I don't understand why they keep the 'hotel' designation.
I met the daughter of an old friend of mine in such a joint, the Shakespeare Hotel ( bar ). She has emigrated and seems to enjoy the place. We ( or at least I anyway ) had an amusing evening and we even managed to join up with a chap who had just arrived from Doncaster ( UK ), to take part in the pub quiz. I mean he hadn't come all the way from Doncaster just for the pub quiz…the pub quiz just happened to be taking place, if you get what I mean. We didn't do too badly. We weren't last. I take this opportunity to thank Nessie for buying me most of the beer I drank because I ran out of cash! My shout next time.
Another thing I have noticed about Aussies; they must be the only people in the English speaking world able to make three syllables out of the word "no"! It goes something like "noi-ee-uh". Very endearing.
Still lots to see and do around this town. I haven't yet spied anyone wearing a bush hat with corks hanging from it. Off on a tour tomorrow……..