Ali had booked our hostel so I had no idea where it was, except that it was relatively close to the harbor. Turns out, we stayed in Jolly Swagman, and it was in King's Cross - the red light district of Sydney. We had our choice of bars, strip clubs, and adult novelty stores. Actually, it wasn't that bad - probably the nicest red light district I've ever seen. Here's a view from our room balcony.
We shared a room with 2 lovely German girls who had recently moved to Sydney for a year of work and travel. They were 20 years old and just graduated high school (something different about the school system). They said that their previous roommates were English, not nice, and ugly but that they liked us much better. Thanks, I think?
The weather was beautiful there, mostly. After stopping for a quick breaki we plopped in this park to soak up the sunshine.
I found a fun tree! I've always had a thing for big trees, particularly ones I can climb on or in.
Then we walked into the Royal Botanical Gardens. It was a lot bigger than I expected. The palm trees and lush greenery made me miss Florida and the beach.
Ali and I practicing our statue poses. I think we got it...
Oh look, another tree!
At the end of the Botanical Gardens are the Sydney Harbor bridge and the Opera House. Beautiful!
It is a cool structure, but that's about it. Sadly, I didn't go to any operas.
We walked across the bridge to see Luna Park and the harbor view from the other side. Surprisingly, it was quite hard to even find the walkway of the bridge and it was long! I think we walked about 8 hours that day.
The next day we took a ferry (you'll have to trust me we are on a boat here) over to the beach.
This is either Manly beach or Shelly beach, I can't remember. Both were packed with tourists but the air and water were still way too cold for my taste. It is only about 2 weeks into Spring so I wasn't surprised. I'm sure the locals have other beaches to go to, I can't imagine they actually stick to these beaches.
On our last day we went down to Darling harbor. It was more inland than Sydney harbor and right off of the central business district so it was much quieter.
Ali has several pictures that I need to get; I will try and post those as well. Other things that didn't earn photos - we managed to spend an unnecessary about of money in a pub and made 5 new Aussie friends there; I also bought some kangaroo jerky and will eventually muster courage to try it; we visited the Hyde Baracks museum and learned all about how Sydney (and later most of Australia) was started by convicts sent from the UK. Turns out that it was quite easy to be convicted of a crime at that time and so many (or most) people sent over were really harmless. Many people also purposely committed minor crimes so that they could come over with their relatives. There was a database of surnames to check to see if your Australian ancestors were registered convicts. I checked, there were both Brights and Burkes but somehow I don't think I have Australian relatives.
In case you were counting, here are the Australian bingo items we accomplished on this trip alone:
6. Walk on the Harbour Bridge9. Make 5 new Aussie friends (bonus points for remembering their names)
12. Eat kangaroo (alright I wont take credit for this yet but it's coming!)
22. Take a picture with the rock art on Shelly beach. - I didn't see any rock art but I did go to Shelly beach so I'll count this one.
25. catch a Sydney ferry from Circular Quay, Sydney Harbour to Darling Harbour and return - I took a ferry from Circular Quay to Manly beach and return, it counts.
28. Visit the Sydney Opera House (bonus points for seeing an Opera) - wasn't quite dressed for the occasion but did visit
32. Visit the Royal Botanic Gardens
33. Do the Sydney Bridge climb - didn't make the budget :(
Glad to see all of the wonderful adventures you are having. And very happy that Ali is there to add to them. Wishing you guys the best.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be covering a lot of ground in a very,very short time. Kudos! Just forget the jerky is something other than beef; it'll probably taste like chicken or beef anyway, everything else exotic does. Was very interested in the Aussie attitude towards the whole convict thing. Yes, some people were relatively harmless. Others were transported for murder, arson, attempted murder or maiming as it was styled in the 1800's, and for rioting and burning like we've had in some of our cities. So many of those transported WERE hardcore lifelong criminals. Stands to reason that since the very first British colony in OZ was convicts and some of their families (by permission, not because family members had commented a crime) that it could become embarrassing when most of your country's first families were descended from prisoners.(Think of the pride here if you're a Mayflower descendant.) Got to find a way to defuse that idea or make it seem not so important. I understand that Aussies find it a point of pride if they can find a convict in their genealogy similar to how everyone in the South US and much of the rest of the country say they have Cherokee grandparents or an Indian princess in their ancestor chart. It's all in how you spin it and I think you witnessed some spin. RB
ReplyDeleteSounds like an awesome adventure. Wish I had the time to come visit...
ReplyDelete-Shirin
Natale - Good to hear from you! Hope all is well
ReplyDeleteRita - You are right, there is a bit of pride or at least interest in having a convict in the genealogy now. It's relatively recent, 20 years ago it was much more shameful, I think. As far as the heinous nature of the crimes, I was thinking more of all the children and orphans that were brought over, I can't imagine their crimes were too terrible.
Shirin - There is plenty of time! Now, finding the money and managing those pesky kids of yours is a different story...Bren's probably available :)