I have just spent 6 days in Sydney, my first visit for over
40 years! I still remember my first view
coming into Sydney harbour in 1971, of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the
then-not-yet-opened Sydney Opera House. They did—and still do—genuinely deserve
that overused adjective “iconic”.
I packed a lot in over my 6 days:
-strolled Bondi Beach, a much more “normal” and family
friendly place than I had been expecting,
-took the ferry to Manly and ate fish and chips on the beach,
-took an open-topped bus tour of the city and the suburbs,
-walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge,
-visited the excellent Taronga Zoo with its good collection
of Australian fauna, informative explanations and signage, animal feeding
shows, and superb views over the harbour and city,
-took a backstage tour of the Opera House and attended a
performance of La Boheme,
-wandered the lanes of the charming suburb of Paddington
with its tiny row houses with their lacy cast iron balconies and railings,
-visited the Australian Museum with its excellent current special exhibition of Alexander the Great’s exploits and place in history,
-saw the new restaurant and entertainment complex of Darling
Harbour with its giant “rubber duckie” and the Saturday night party crowd of
girls dressed to the nines in the shortest and tightest possible skirts and clomping along (as though in leg-irons) on 8 inch heels rather than the flipflops they are used to,
-visited the Sydney Fish Market in the early morning, said
to be the second largest in the world after Tokyo (but there is a huge gap between number one and number two!),
-strolled the Botanic Gardens and Mrs Macquarrie’s Point,
-admired the view from the Sydney Tower,
-ogled the Australian sharks and rays and dugong, as well as
the colourful Australian reef fish, in the Aquarium,
- walked through Hyde Park (a former horse racing track one
eighth the size of its London namesake),the Rocks (the site of the first
settlement), and the CBD (central business district) to see the interesting mix
or old and new architecture.
At the end of this post is a selection of my photos, with
captions which give more details of the things I saw. So the rest of this blog post will be my musings and reflections, rather than a detailed travelogue.
When I first came to Australia in 1971 it was still the days
of the “White Australia” policy and the “assisted passage scheme” to encourage
immigration from “white” countries like the UK, Ireland and Canada —giving rise
to the name “Ten pound Poms” since they paid only £10 for their fare by ship. In
fact the ship that I was on which left from Vancouver (I lived in Canada then)
had quite a number of assisted passage Canadians.
The White Australia policy is long since gone and you can
certainly see the effect, at least in Sydney. I would say that at least 20% of
the faces show an Asian or (to a lesser extent) Indian racial background,
although the voices coming out of those faces usually have broad Australian
accents. Very very few black faces
though. So it seems that there has been little immigration from Africa so far.
The influence of the Asian population is immediately evident in the restaurants
which all serve an Australian/ Asian fusion cuisine with a heavy emphasis on
fish. This may account for the healthy look of everyone on the streets and the lack
of obesity.
I admit that I didn't much like Australia back in 1971.
Although the scenery was fascinating (I travelled by ship to the cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and then by bus through the red centre of Australia to
Alice Springs and Ayers Rock (now called by its indigenous name of Uluru) and
up to Darwin), I found the people much too “frontier” for my taste. And it was such
a macho beer-swilling society –women simply could not be seen in bars and the
men spent all day and night in them. I remember thinking that it was like what
Canada and US must have been like fifty years earlier. I thought that it was no
wonder that so many Australians travelled and worked abroad (as they still do)
since the culture back home in Australia was so suffocatingly boorish.
Well I am pleased to say that, at least what I saw in Sydney,
has led me to moderate my view. There is still a lot of beer drunk but also a
lot of wine. And there is now great pride in the Australian environment and preserving its flora and fauna (there are “green” reminders everywhere and failing to recycle would be a fatal
social faux pas). “Heritage” is a favourite buzz word now. It seems that in the
1970s and 80s Australians pulled back from the brink of tearing down all their
“old” (ie nineteenth century) buildings just in time, and now Sydney is an
interesting mix of architecture, including some of the original sandstone
structures (or at least their facades preserved on the front of modern
buildings) many of which have been lovingly preserved and restored, as well as
early 20th century and art deco, 1970s concrete brutalist, and a number of quite interesting
modern glass and concrete skyscrapers.
Although the car is still king and there are freeways
cutting gashes through the city, the public transit system is exemplary and
most people seem to walk in the central area, which is reasonably flat. Crossing the street is not easy
though---the streets are just too wide for safe jay-walking and the pedestrian
traffic signals are incredibly short and the car signals are incredibly long. I wouldn't want to be a disabled person trying to get across a Sydney street.
That need to sprint across roads combined with the healthy diet (other than the
beer!) may account for the fact that everyone looks very fit and even the older
people are tanned and spry.
However public transport is exemplary and reasonably priced.
Numerous government and private ferries ply the harbour and the Parramatta
River and take commuters and tourists to the suburbs along the shores. Buses
are numerous and frequent---and the bus drivers are helpful and pleasant! There
is a good inner city and commuter rail service.
Sydney doesn’t seem to have discovered the coffee culture, at least to the extent to which
predominates in London and New York, with a Starbucks or Costa on every street
corner. Yes there are places to buy a coffee particularly in the lobbies of
office buildings, but they are not places to linger. In fact in one outdoor cafe
I was told I couldn’t have a coffee because they stop serving it at 4 pm! After
that you have to drink alcohol.
Sydney seems to love its acronyms, and not just the usual
short forms for banks and insurance companies like ANZ, NAB, OPSM, NIB, but
also QVB (Queen Victoria Building), CBD (Central Business District). They also
like diminutives like “sunnies” for sunglasses, “barbie” for barbeque, “tinnies”
for a can of beer, “swimmers” for a swim suit.
I saw no cats and only two dogs in Sydney. What a contrast
to the South American cities where
everyone has a pampered pooch and the streets are filled with feral dogs
and cats! A Buenos Aires dogwalker (see last year's posts on this blog) would
starve to death in Sydney. This may be because of the Australian’s new-found
passion for its native flora and fauna. There were quite graphic dioramas in
both the zoo and the Australian museum about how cats and dogs kill and maim
the smaller indigenous wildlife. A
little unfair, I thought.
Australia is not cheap! All attractions, including museums,
have a steep admission charge ranging from A$20 to A$50 or more. (£1=Australian
$1.5). Hotel rooms and restaurant food is also expensive and so is wine. So you
need to budget accordingly.
You cannot buy any alcoholic drinks in supermarkets. You
have to go to a “bottle shop”. These don’t seem to be government run as they
are in Canada but there must be strict licencing requirements. The bottle shops
are often attached to a tavern as a sort of “off-licence” like in the UK. And the taxes on
alcohol mean that the cost is high, although that doesn’t seem to put people
off!
…and now I will let the photos speak for themselves. Next post within a week about my car tour
round Tasmania (subject to internet availability.) Then it is off to Antarctica…
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