Departure

Sunday the 26th was my last day in Sydney. I had an early afternoon flight which still gave me plenty of time to relax by the harbor and enjoy the sunshine.

I had a very nice breakfast which was only marred by a very aggressive seagull actually taking a piece of garlic bread right off my plate. Funnily enough there was a sign right by where I was sitting that cautioned against exactly that (unfortunately I did not take a picture of it). I would have far preferred to have my food stolen by an aggressive koala...

I walked back to my hotel through the botanical gardens which gave a different view of the city skyline. Here's the best of that series.

I saw a strange bird on the grounds. It looked interesting.

Still would have been better to find a koala in the last moments of the trip...

In any event it was then time to go to the airport. I loved my time in Sydney and hope to come back some day during the summer and see the beach scene properly. It is certainly one of the most relaxing cities I have ever visited.

I have another trip planned for next week, so please check back then!

ANZAC Day

Saturday was ANZAC Day which commemorates those that fought at Gallipoli in World War I as members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. It is the local equivalent of Memorial Day. There is a dawn service and then parades during the day. I passed through a staging area on my way to the harbor.

I dedided to reprise my trip from the day before and went to Manly Beach again. I had considered going to Bondi Beach to check it out but that would have involved buses or cabs so I went with what I knew. The ferry is just such a civilized way to travel.

The weather was much nicer than the day before, so here's another picture of the downtown skyline.

This time around I was able to get a shot of the naval base; you may recall an earlier pic of a warship steaming past the Opera House, this is where it launched from.

I had a very enjoyable afternoon at the beach just walking around.

Not much had changed from the day before so I'm not putting up a lot of redundant photos, but I thought this one is interesting since it captures just how crowded the water is with surfers.

This is autumn after all so it's pretty impressive to see the dedication to the sport.

I had a very nice dinner with two of my mates and called it a night.

Manly Beach

On Friday Kiwi Nomad and I took a ferry to Manly Beach (what a great name!). One of the very best things about Sydney is the possibility of living in a beach town and commuting by 20 minute ferry to downtown (and indeed one of our friends there does just that). The ferry pier is in Circular Quay right by the Opera House, so the view of the city is fantastic.

The closest equivalent to that lifestyle would be living in Venice or Manhattan Beach in LA and somehow taking a ferry to downtown or living near Atlantic Highlands and taking the ferry to Manhattan (of course that ferry is far longer and NY winter is a bit different from Sydney's).

Here's a shot of the main strip that connects the port area to the beach. It's not nearly as touristy / cheesy as one might expect.

Apparently Hungry Jack's is a fully authorized subsidiary of Burger King - I would have been amazed if a knockoff had been allowed in a place such as Australia; I've definitely seen unauthorized ones elsewhere in Asia.

Here's a view of the beach facing south.

I thought this was pretty cool.


There are plenty of volleyball courts on the beach and even though the weather was by no means perfect for the beach there were people playing.

Here's a shot of something less telegenic.

There are signs everywhere that advise against swimming within 24 hours of a storm due to pollution. I guess the storm drain runoff goes directly into the sea.

Here's the corso from the beach side.

Here's a shot of the beach facing northwards.

Even though I've been to the Southern Hemisphere before there's still something odd about seeing the sun track from east to west in the northern sky. I'm sure you get used to it after a while.

I saw something which I'd heard of before at a tourist shop - a map flipped upside down so Australia etc were in the top part of the map and the Northern Hemisphere was in the bottom. It did look a bit unusual, and of course there's no reason other than historical accident and population density that our globes aren't the other way.

http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/resourcebank/maps/img12.jpg

After a nice lunch we grabbed a ferry back to the city. The timing was good as the clouds started to roll in. Here's a shot of the Opera House from the ferry. Note the BTC / Panopticon on the right.

The views of the city from the ferry really are quite impressive.

We saw a pretty old school type ship in the harbor.

It's amazing to consider that people used to live on these things for months crossing the ocean. Imagine the complexity of rigging the sails in order to make it move, as opposed to just jamming the throttles forward as one would now.

We met up with some friends and had a nice evening out.

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Environs

Thursday morning I met up with my friend Kiwi Nomad who had flown in from London. After a nice breakfast at the main Sydney ferry port Circular Quay I decided to wander around. The weather was much nicer than on Tuesday so the day was ripe for sightseeing.

Here's a shot of downtown taken from the eastern side of the harbor.


The Sydney Harbour Bridge is just as iconic as the Opera House in terms of Sydney landmarks. It towers over the port area and is an impressive and imposing structure. Imagine what New York would look like if the George Washington Bridge had been placed where the Lincoln or Holland Tunnels are and you get a sense of the scale. It was built in 1932.
By the way, there's an outfit called BridgeClimb which organizes climbs up to the top of the bridge. Note them at the top by the flags.


I can't say that it's something I seriously considered doing but if you need to test your nerve that's as good a way as any.

The Sydney Opera House sits at the end of the northeastern side of the harbor and it is an impressive building indeed.


The shape is striking and recognizable. Despite having a bit of the late 60s / early 70s design ethos it does not look dated.


It still looks quite modern and futuristic.

The detailing on the roof panels is exquisite, and it captures the light beautifully.


I wonder how many additional billions of dollars of tourism money it has brought in, even though only a fraction of visitors actually go inside to see an opera. That present value of the building must be enormous.

Here's a shot of the CBD as seen from the opera house.

I then decided to walk across the bridge myself to check it out. The views from there are very impressive. The main span I estimate to be about the equivalent of 10-15 stories high, so standing on it you tower over the harbor.

Here's a great shot the the Opera House from the bridge.

Note the HMAS non-museum piece warship sailing away - there's a naval base on the other side of the Opera House.

Here's a shot of CBD as seen from the bridge.

I should mention the support pylons are massive, and you can walk up to the top of one of them. I didn't have a chance to do that.

I took this picture from the restaurant where I had lunch. Note the BridgeClimb people walking off the bridge. You can see where they clip to the guideline and notice that the railing is ankle height. My heart started beating faster just thinking about what it must be like.

Here's one last shot of them congregating before going onto the actual 'hump' of the bridge.


I started to wonder if I should test myself... Maybe next time.

There's a little park under the bridge which has great views of North Sydney. There's a Coney Island type of complex there.

I find the grinning face to be a little creepy.

I finally got a good shot of something I'd been meaning to the whole trip. I saw a bunch of unusual looking half coupe / half pickup trucks which were popular in the 70s in the US. Here they're called Utes and are fairly common.



This particular one looks most like a normal pickup and is least striking - I saw plenty of othesr that looked like low-riders and were pastel colored. I couldn't get good shots of those.

I then explored the northwest side of the city some more on my way to Darling Harbour. There was an interesting semi-residential / semi-loft style neighborhood.

It was close to the port area where the Boat Traffic Control tower sits. As mentioned in the previous post it absolutely towers over everything. I wonder if the residents find it unnerving or if they get used to it.


I started to hum the song by Rockwell 'I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me...'

One part of the neighborhood reminded me a lot of New Orleans - the acrhitecture is pretty similar.



A final shot of the BTC. Incidentally the building under it is Unversal Studios.

As an aside I fully satisfied myself that the city in The Matrix is Sydney. In the scene where Morpheus explains to Neo what is happening he turns on an old TV. There's an airborne tracking shot approaching the city and you clearly see the BTC in the foreground. I thought it was fitting.

I concluded my walk at Darling Harbour where I sat in the same place as before and enjoyed the view. The evening light was particularly impressive that day.

Darling Harbour, Sydney

April 22 the weather was much better, at least in the morning. I decided to wander west to see Darling Harbour which looked pretty interesting on the map.

On my way there I passed a unique looking complex called the Queen Victoria Building.

It is a Victorian-era (unsurprisingly) shopping mall which now has plenty of nice modern shops. I was quite struck by how similar it looks to Central European centers such as GUM in Moscow. Note the ornate floors and multiple unusual timepieces. Definitely not a typical mall.


I then proceeded to Darling Harbour, and it was indeed impressive. It's like the South Street Seaport in NYC with lots of shops and restaurants. Because the marina is semi-circular you can walk around it (and there's a pedestrian bridge over it). So in terms of view it is more like being in Williamsburg or Jersey City and seeing all of downtown Manhattan before you.

I think it has the best views of Sydney's Central Business District.

There is a maritime museum nearby so I walked around a bit. There were a couple of inetersting ships parked there. That submarine has a serious looking sonar dome...


I love the name of the destroyer...


Definitely not something to be trifled with. However, it's a risky name to give an allied ship - 'vampire' is the US Navy term for hostile inbound anti-ship missile. I only imagine the comedy moments on joint patrols when American watch officers would relay to their superiors that the Vampire was closing...

Here's a far more old-school vessel and a great view of CBD.


Note the shadow across the buildings despite the blue sky behind. The weather that day was fairly volatile.


You can see the storm clouds brewing to the right.

This structure fascinated me.


It's at the very tip of southwest Sydney called Miller's Point.. That entire area is a large port, and there are massive parking lots that abut the water. However there are no docked ships, no cars, and no cargo. So you have this enormous open space and then this huge Boat Traffic Control tower sticking up out of it. It clearly is there to track all of the comings and goings in Sydney Harbour and has at least one radar spinning on it. The architectural design of it is a bit lacking though as one can't help but think of a prison watchtower looming over everything... At least the cell antennae around the middle mean you get phenomenal reception.

At this point the rain started in earnest so I spent the afternoon reading my Economist under an outdoor canopy at one of the pubs by the water. There are worse ways than that to spend an afternoon....

On my way back I passed this sign on a bar door:


I especially appreciated the candor with respect to probability of winning.

After an uneventful dinner I let the jetlag pull me under.

Sydney, Australia (The Nomad Returns)

Hi all

This spring I find myself once again with free time on my hands (very fortunately under more constructive circumstances than a year ago). Since the USD is in better shape than last year I thought I'd wander farther afield and decided to visit Sydney, Australia.

I flew in Tuesday morning 21apr from San Francisco. I spent most of the day walking around downtown Sydney. Although I took plenty of pictures most of them are not as good as ones taken later because the weather was pretty lousy. There are two that I do like - a nice shot of the iconic Sydney Opera House:


And a shot of an (equally?) iconic location:


I barely kept my eyes open through dinner due to jetlag and retired early.