February 26 - Sydney

Today at sunrise we entered Sydney harbour after a two-day trip across the Tasman Sea.  When we opened our curtains, we were greeted with an amazing scenic vista that is on every Australian tourist brochure.  There right in front of us was the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  What a wonderful way to start the morning.  The Sydney skyline is very impressive.  The modern architecture mixes nicely with the older warehouses that are along the shoreline of the harbour.

Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales and the largest city in Australia and has a population of 5,000,000 people. At the time of the 2016 census, more than 250 different languages were spoken in Sydney and about a third of the residents spoke a language other than English at home.

Indigenous Australians have inhabited the Sydney area since pre-historic times, making it one of the richest of Aboriginal archaeological sites in Australia. During his first Pacific voyage in 1770, Lieutenant James Cook and his crew became the first Europeans to chart the eastern coast of Australia, making landfall at Botany Bay and inspiring British interest in the area. In 1788, the first fleet of British convicts founded Sydney as a British penal colony.

The shell shaped structure of the Opera house is an iconic piece of architecture that is known worldwide. It took 16 years to complete, starting with the design competition until the grand opening.  The building comprises multiple performance venues, which together host well over 1,500 performances annually, attended by more than 1.2 million people.  It is visited by more than 8 million tourist each year and it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel arch bridge across Sydney Harbour that carries rail, vehicular, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district (CBD) and the North Shore.  If you are so inclined, you can actually climb to the top of bridge.  The building of the bridge started in 1928 and was an economic boom for Sydney during the depression of the early 1930s. The bridge was formally opened on March 1932. Among those who attended where several government officials, who were scheduled to give speeches. The Premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, was to open the bridge by cutting a ribbon at its southern end. However, just as Lang was about to cut the ribbon, a man in military uniform rode up on a horse, slashing the ribbon with his sword and declared the Sydney Harbour Bridge open in the name of the people of New South Wales before the official ceremony began. He was promptly arrested, and the ribbon was hurriedly retied allowing Lang to perform the official opening ceremony. Only in Australia.

The arch of the bridge is composed of two 28-panel arch trusses and the height of the bridge at its apex is 161 feet.  At each end of the bridge are a set of tall pylons measuring 292 feet. Although originally added to the bridge solely for their aesthetic value, all four pylons have now been put to good use. The south-eastern pylon contains a museum and tourist centre, with a 360° lookout at the top providing views across the harbour and city.

More recently Sydney was host to the 2000 Summer Olympics.

In the category of “the world is a small place after all”, this morning we were having breakfast in the ship’s Oceanview Café and a couple sat down next to us. For some reason I thought he looked familiar but I though it was because I had seen him on the boat.  It turns out they were Bill Tarry and his wife from St. Thomas.  For those of you who are not familiar with the Port Stanley / St. Thomas area, St. Thomas is about 15km north of our home in Port Stanley and the Tarry family is the dominate residential home builder in the area.  It turned out Marg and the Tarry’s have several mutual friends.

During the day, we took the hop-on hop-off bus to get a feel for Sydney. Some of the highlights were the Opera House, of course, a section of the city called the Rocks, the central business district, several memorial parks, the navy base, the aquarium, several museums and the world famous Bondi Beach.  

We stopped at the aquarium and had a wonderful time watching the penguins, sharks and sting rays.  Later in the afternoon we had a short walk around the Governor General’s house and the associated gardens.

We stopped at restaurant / bar near the aquarium for lunch.  They have a great system in place.  In the female washroom, they have posted a set of key secret words that a lady can use when ordering to alert the server of a harassing or potentially dangerous situation. For example “99” means get a taxi and sneak the lady out of the bar. More bars need to have this system in place.

Late in the evening there was a very heavy windstorm.  At 9pm the harbour master closed the harbour to all marine traffic.  Because the last boarding time for the ship was 4am, there may have been people stranded onshore.

The evening’s entertainment was an all girl band called the Oz Girls.  They performed many Motown hits and some disco songs from the 70s and 80s. Their singing was excellent and their choreography was crisp and energetic.

After dinner there was Marg’s favourite activity, the silent disco.  Everyone had a wonderful time and Marg hopes that there will be one more night with the silent disco, before we disembark on Saturday.