Thursday, October 21, 2010

A Day In Sydney

We arrived in Sydney in the early hours of Thursday morning, utterly deprived of sleep after a night on the train. After checking into the YHA, we noticed that we could see another YHA out of the window. Sure enough, there are two YHA hostels next to Sydney Central station. Getting between them isn't too tricky, as Google Maps demonstrates:

Despite having been to Sydney several times previously, we decided to go sightseeing. This time, we headed for the Royal Botanic Gardens. On the way, we found some great views of the city, which Hannah is keen to show off here:


On the way, we headed to Wolloomaloo in seach of a coffee to wake us up. This being New South Wales, it is only fitting that the first person we met should be from South Wales, specifically a guy from Neath who had spotted my Wales shirt. He pointed us in the direction of coffee and also advised us to stay away from scary back streets in King's Cross.

We stumbled upon the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This turned out to be full of art of various kinds, most of which sadly appeared to be Aboriginal art (on which I am not keen) and modern art (on which I am even less keen). We weren't permitted to take pictures of the artwork, alas, but here is my attempt at copying one of the more "clever" pieces of modern art:


My two faviourite pieces of art turned out to be by local schoolchildren, which probably says something about my level of art-appreciation.

After exiting the gallery, we finally made it to the Royal Botanic Gardens. These clever signs let us know that we had arrived:


There were many awesome plants in evidence, such as this one:


I'm not sure exactly what this one was but it was a bit like Mum's Flaming Red Hot Poker plant, only larger:


There were many eucalyptus trees such as this one, which didn't seem to have much bark on it. Presumably that's normal.


We then headed for Mrs Macquarie's Point, a peninsular from which excellent views of the harbour bridge and the opera house can be found. We discovered Mrs Macquarie's Chair, a seat which was hand carved out of some highly geological rocks by convicts in 1810 so that the governor's wife had somewhere to sit and watch ships sail into the harbour:


Upon reaching the head of Mrs Macquaries's Point, we enjoyed impressive views:



On the way back, we got some great views of the city, too:


That was enough for one morning. We headed back to the hostel for lunch and a kip.

Tomorrow, we'll be heading to Byron Bay, on our way up to Brisbane.

1 comment:

Sheepette said...

loving your at work chris, try selling it and becoming mega rich!