Day 4 in Sydney CBD & with only 1 more day left I started with my favourite Vegie Brekky at the Lobby Café within my Wyndham Sydney Resort & their unbelievable Zinger Juice which gave me the added power to walk to The Powerhouse Museum Sydney in ‘nearby’ suburb of Ultimo, along Goulburn St heading West (about 20mins). This museum opens at 10am & is a completely free entry. There’s also an associated café in case you are there before opening times. The museum is basically West, adjacent to Darling Harbour so not a bad walk.

This is the first time I have seen this museum and was very surprised as to what I found inside. There are approx. 400,000 items on display and some are huge as you will find out looking at the photos. The very first display on Ground Floor is the NSW #1 locomotive with carriages which started service in 1855. It served for just 22yrs and was quickly secured as a museum item. It is very rare for any country or state world-wide to have in their possession their #1 locomotive so it is a thrill to see we had secured ours in prime condition and is a perfect display of yesteryear.

Following this display, you find yourself overlooking the vast floor space of the previous power station with original gantry cranes still in place and all the working machinery & history of the steam power mounted on the floorspace and how this power type served in our history to fast-track Australia’s energy & innovation to various industries. Some displays even showed how steam & air power was invented & by whom. A complete history and a lot of miniature displays in working order. I was so thrilled to see so many students today doing their educational tours there. Learning real education instead of all the WOKE curriculum crap in the classroom.

Progressing from the same elevated platform behind, you can see the lowly-suspended original Catalina Frigate Bird 11 seaplane. More on this important plane later. In the same area there are other forms of transport, namely another steam locomotive, horse drawn carriage & another higher-suspended past regional ‘Careflight’ aircraft & a suspended rocket missile replica. In this mixed transport area, I was surprised to see the original Central Railway Station Indicator Board in all its glory. It was designed by NSW Railways back in 1906 and served the passengers for some 76years. The board shows a display of a Sunday in 1937. The board was cleverly operated from the floor by workers using key operated rods, gears & levers changing even the clock faces. A real feat of engineering. In 1982 this board was replaced with 20 television monitor board from my Day 1 blog photos.

To the Northern end you are guided into the space arena with all kinds of space, rocket & satellite machinery and working models giving you an insight of the internals of spacecraft and what expertise goes into how this adventure is undertaken. There is a display of an actual moon rock & scaled moon traveller buggy. As the saying goes “the more you look .. the more you see”. I believe this is the favourite area for the junior school students. The sky is not the limit nowadays.

Now back to the truly amazing Catalina seaplane which was provided by the then Prime Minister from the RAAF base at Rathmines, NSW for the sole purpose of flying the first flight (1951) & then of many from Sydney to Valparaiso, Chile, some 13,600klms & taking 2 weeks to undertake the flight. It was refitted, flown & fully operated by Sir Patrick Gordon Taylor GC MC. He later gifted this plane to the museum in 1961. The flight left Rose Bay Sydney to Brisbane then continued to hop from various Pacific islands towards Valparaiso Chile. In early 2019 my eldest son, Scott & I travelled to Peru, Ecuador & Chile & even stayed at Valparaiso so I have a clearer understanding of this feat. We travelled to Auckland, then Santiago Chile, then into Lima Peru, all in 22hrs with 3hrs in total stopovers. That was tough for us, so how do you do a 2 weeks journey in a propeller plane with little comfort?

I noticed with great delight that the first return flight incorporated a safe landing in Australia waters of my hometown of Grafton on the Big River, The Clarence River before the huge celebratory landing at Sydney with Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies on hand to congratulate them. A famous background story of Capt Taylor was when on a Tasman crossing flight aboard The Southern Cross plane with the very famous Sir Charles Kingsford Smith where he was the co-pilot & navigator. During this crossing mid-flight, the Port engine was failing & Taylor scrambled out onto the strut of the wing (Bi-Plane) & transferred oil by a thermos from the Starboard engine to the Port engine. This saved the plane & crew & he was awarded the Empire Gallantry Medal for his courage. I’m now interested in reading his books, Frigate Bird, Call to the Winds & The Sky Beyond.

In addition to this city Powerhouse Ultimo Museum the NSW State Govt is currently spending an enormous amount of money to construct a sister museum, named Powerhouse Parramatta in the Western Suburbs of Sydney where it will be the largest cultural infrastructure project in NSW since the Sydney Opera House and one of the largest structural engineering and architecturally complex projects underway in Australia. The museum will be the largest museum in NSW at 30,000 square metres & will incorporate the unique design and architectural features to include 18,000 square metres for inspiring exhibitions and education programs, sharing more of the Powerhouse collection than ever before.

Finally, after quite some time I was out of the maze of the museum and searched for another outlook of the Darling Harbour (West side) coming across the Marine Museum along the Western dockside. This is a very large exhibition of past warships, an historic submarine, war vessels & even my beloved HMAS Bark Endeavour, a replica of the famous HMS Endeavour sailed by Ltn Cook, later to become Capt James Cook. To view this ship & others you will require a ticket $25 Adult or Concession $20. This exhibition is a great sight but you can’t help notice the everchanging backdrop of the Eastern Darling Harbour dockside & CBD skyscrapers with the new Barangaroo Casino Tower on the left of the photos.

I continued my city walk via the Queen Victoria Building (QVB), completed 1898 for a light lunch & the best coffee at Metropole QVB café before winding back to my resort but failed to beat the thunderous storm event & chilly ice winds. How the city changes and people scatter everywhere when rain falls. My day walk totalled only 9.44klms so that is below my daily average, but my feet are telling me it surely was longer. Must be getting older. Lol!! With all day activities over these past few days, I was not inclined to pursue the nightlife of Sydney. A few theatre shows were already booked out & not really of my preference. I thought it was best to manage my body stamina with all this walking I’ve been doing.

Stay tuned for Day 5 where I venture way back in time to early settlement & convict days via The Rocks area and old wharves adjacent to the Harbour Bridge. Take care & stay safe. Thank you for reading my blogs. Very much appreciated.