Sydney Getaway November 2022 – Day 2

Day 2 in Sydney CBD walking from my Wyndham Sydney Resort in Surrey Hills I ventured North towards the harbour via the Botanical Gardens through the magnificent Hyde Park via College St. I hope the city map provides some more navigation assistance, even though it doesn’t show you the light rail fully. The map still contains the monorail which is no longer in use & was demolished some time ago. My resort is near the N at the end of the written Chinatown. Central Station is just visible at the bottom of the map in the centre. Mrs Macquarie’s Chair is under the legend. Fort Denison would be at the top of the legend. Barangaroo Crown Casino Tower is on the wharf area to the right of the compass. I hope the locations assist you in using the map for this blog & future Sydney blogs?

In the ‘Upper’ Hyde Park (South), the first major icon monument is the super impressive Anzac Memorial constructed out of the Sydney sandstone. It certainly befits the sacrifices our Anzacs undertook to give us our culture & freedom/ rights. Inside are the inscriptions and testimonies of battles/ service in several parts of the world laid out in curved enclosures where our veterans served under great hardships.

My route encapsulated a lesser step day than yesterday (10.88klms) but it was full of nature and freedom & less of city cluster so it was legal meandering to enlighten the senses. At the bottom slope of the Upper Hyde Park was a most impressive statue of one of my heroes, Captain James Cook. He has copped a lot of rubbish of rewritten historical false ‘facts’ from cancel culture & Left-Wing socialist agendas & I can’t stress enough what this great man actually did in REAL history so pls do your own research & not take in the current narrative. I had just finished a historical book “Beating France to Botany Bay” by Margaret Cameron-Ash & it is brilliant & very accurate in how Australia was founded & we beat the French by just 5 days to this wonderland and it dispels all the falsehoods concerning Capt James Cook & the 1^st Fleet to settlement. Capt James Cook, with his enormous sailing the globe adventures he eliminated scurvy in his crew which was the biggest killer for sailors & changed the way such sail journeys were conducted.

Heading further North there are several impressive structures such as, The Australian Museum, St Mary’s Cathedral & The NSW Art Gallery, with the new art gallery being constructed behind. From there you come across the entry into The Domain & Botanical Gardens parklands. It was best to follow Mrs Macquarie’s Road completed in 1816 which then leads to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair where she used to sit & watch the ships sail past in the early days of settlement, right on the peninsula. It was her recluse area. The Domain & Botanical Gardens both had major staging works underway for upcoming events (Carols by Candelight is my guess) so my access was sadly restricted, so I eventually took the harbourside entry pathway to circumnavigate the headland point & gaze out into the harbour from Mrs Macquarie’s Chair. The same pathway also takes you back to the western side entry of the Opera House & Circular Quay.

Back in the day when I was working for the Cwlth Govt in construction works around 1984-85 in Project Division 1 at Central Office, Australia Square, I was assigned to do a final photographic survey of the small granite pagoda built especially for Mrs Macquarie in the early settlement days when her husband was the Governor. This pagoda was sited at the rear of HMAS Kuttabul (Navy area on Garden Island boundary). The Admiral gave me permission to carry out detailed photographic work on & around Garden Island for the pagoda but when the Military Naval Police nabbed me with a camera midday on a Friday I was interrogated rigorously until the Admiral was finally reached around 5pm. Whew!!! I was figuring I would be spending the weekend in the brig as it was a federal offence to undertake photography on a naval dockyard. This pagoda was to be removed piece by piece & relocated adjacent to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, but it looks like this was never undertaken so I was a bit saddened I couldn’t rejoin this memory, marvel at it & touch the granite pagoda again.

Looking out into the harbour from Mrs Macquarie’s Chair I was thankful to take a photo of Fort Denison again which proves the sea level has not risen by more than 1cm over the entire time it was built so the Climate ideology believers can be relieved now. Climate Change is a UN, New World Order, WEF scam of wealth redistribution, nothing to do with the environment & for those that need educating on this really need to read “Green Murder” by our Australian Ian Plimer. Absolute facts in this book and really tells how this scam is killing humanity. Fort Denison was first used as a penal site, then levelled by convicts for a defence facility around 1840-1862 when finished.

Walking back towards the garden entrance on the Eastern side, next to Garden Island Dockyard I came across the Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton pool adjacent to the Woolloomooloo Wharves (ritzy redeveloped area) near Garden Island Navy area. It’s the first time I had come across this area apart from work at the time. The aquatic centre has an 8 lane 50m heated saltwater pool. ‘Boy’ Charlton was a 5 medal Olympic swimmer. His 1^st World Record was set at just 15yrs of age in the early 1900s. Walking across the garden I headed over towards the Opera House & Circular Quay (lunch & a beer) then off to The Strand (historical Shopping arcade) & my favourite building the Queen Victoria Building (QVB, built 1898) further up George St opposite the Town Hall & to a great coffee shop, The Metropole where I was granted superb coffee, treats & service & went there quite a few times. The above city scape photo shows the Sydney Tower & Skywalk on the left, Barangaroo Crown Casino Tower on the far right, slightly in the background. The Opera House & Harbour Bridge are on the far outside of the photo on the right. The Sydney Tower offers 360-degree views of Sydney & beyond & I can’t believe I overlooked this opportunity however, I have visited there before. The enormous Westfield Shopping Centre is under this tower & also has a revolving restaurant which I am told is magnificent at night dining.

Apologies for not getting an external photo of the QVB for you. The building takes up an entire city block and provides 3 storeys of shopping and restaurants and links underground to the heavy city rail network. The building was constructed on the site where the original city markets were held back in 1898. It was one of those things with thousands of people around, the light rail running silently passed at times stopping at the Town Hall where the last thing on your mind was to take a photo. You can easily Google for photos of this truly magnificent building with its trademark enormous central dome and with a welcoming statue of Queen Victoria at the main entrance. Definitely worth a look. The Town Hall is spectacular too.

Seeing I have a great Day 3 planned I decided it was best to head back to my resort, beat the upcoming storm & take in some me relax time & to write this story. Hope you like the pics? Take care & stay safe. Thank you for reading my blogs. Very much appreciated.