Before I start my Day 5 blog of my recent Sydney visit, I can’t believe I have racked up my 60^th blog in my last travel blog, Day 4. Who would have thought I would reach this milestone being basically self-taught on this writing adventure. If I can do it, albeit in a simplified version of blogging, anyone can do it. Please encourage anyone you know to take the journey on whatever subject they are passionate about.

Well it’s Day 5 & my last day in Sydney CBD & another great brekky at the Lobby Café then off towards the nearby Hyde Park (North direction) to first, see where the real elite criminals reside out of sight from NSW citizens (Parliament House  .. der!!!) in Macquarie St. Sadly, we are ‘blessed’ with self-serving inept politicians that always put us citizens last & then lie & bribe us to vote them back in at elections. This Macquarie Street is full of the elites, highest paid medical specialists, financial bodies, etc much like Wall Street in New York. Australia must be the most over governed country in the world as we are only 25Mil in population & we have 3 levels of governance. Per capita we would have the biggest number of public servants and politicians anywhere in the world. As Trump said “We must drain the swamp”. So accurate & strongly wish this to happen soon.

Along Macquarie St, heading North I saw another hero statue of mine, Matthew Flinders who was the first to circumnavigate around Australia starting on the West Coast in 1801 & finishing 1803 amongst his other great achievements. He was also the first one to name the then New Holland, Australia on his maps & they were far more accurate than any other sailor in his journeys & some are still used today. Walking further & around the corner was the magnificent NSW State Library and towards the harbour I came across a beautiful plaque commemorating the greatness & thankfulness of our horses in World War 1. The forgotten heroes & sadly not one returned to their homeland to retire in pastures befitting their service. For some unknown reason to me they were all euthanised under orders.

I kept walking down towards the harbour where you cannot avoid The Opera House, Harbour Bridge in all their glory or now, the empty cruise ship terminal (1st photo below). The Queen Elizabeth liner certainly didn’t stay long (2 days). Moving to the western side of Circular Quay you are presented with a great sandstone building of the NSW Contemporary Arts Museum which looks like it is heading fast towards the WOKE format, so I won’t be entering there. Continuing along the harbourside you can start to walk under the southern approach of the Harbour Bridge & see the maintenance scaffolding in numerous locations for the ongoing preservation painting of the steel structure & the like. The workers look so tiny up there. Of course, the sun plays havoc with your camera this time of the day. Arghh! Lunar Park still looks the same across the harbour & it must be 4 decades since I set foot there & for some strange reason, I have no yearning to revisit in the time I have left. Lunar Park photo is in the background of the bottom RH photo.

Keeping to the water’s edge you come down some steep stairs & around to Hickson St & the start of Piers 1 & 2 & Wharves 3-5, etc of luxury apartments set on the old wharves with plenty of expensive boats moored there. I wonder how they replace the timber piles supporting these wharves? The Body Corporate fees must be massive, let alone the purchase price! I did marvel at the Bentley Sports coupe parked out on the street.

Around this Rocks area you can see the really old sections and the fast re-development of this Rocks headland with another view of new construction & the recently completed Barangaroo Crown Casino Tower behind. If you look closely as you wander around you can see the unusual Palisade Hotel (built 1915-16) & Sydney’s Oldest Hotel, Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel, cnr Argyle & Kent Sts & then the Oldest Pub, Fortune of War, 143 George St, all are heritage listed. By this time, I had done a complete circumnavigation of The Rocks area and enjoyed a great late morning tea at the bakery adjacent to the Fortunes of War pub in glorious sunshine.

Walking back towards Circular Quay it was great to see a wonderful plaque at the staircase behind the Contemporary Arts building of the First Fleet but alas, so many people were oblivious to it and looked like any other plaque at first glance. Shame, so many people walked past this every day & not take in the enormous significance.

A surprising popup display structure was the Louis Vuitton Exhibition at the start of Circular Quay near the forecourt of the Contemporary Arts building which must have cost an absolute fortune! Even had an electrical wheelchair access lift to the side for disability access and the internal display, whilst definitely not my fashion style certainly no expense spared. Fashion does cost money … lots of it!! Recently the world’s wealthiest man who owns volumes of fashion & perfume houses, etc took over the mantle of Elon Musk so that proves it. The massive vibrant screen is the last display before the exit & captures your movement walking past & places the inter-twining swirling colours & blackness into a fluid sensual 3D abstract affect. A very weird experience. Luckily, the lady following me showed everyone her moves while I drifted (sneaked) towards the exit, as I’m shy to displaying my ‘moves’. Lol!!

Moving on past Circular Quay heading East, I rewarded myself with an expensive schooner of beer at The Opera Café near the water’s edge such was the luxury setting ($11.30 thank you). Not wishing to partake in another luxury beer I wandered off to the nearest tourism spot, The Sydney Museum in Bridge St. Seeing the large Indigenous Flag on its facing was a bit confronting at first as there was no Australian Flag alongside which is obviously divisive to say the least, for we are ONE!!! Everywhere you go nowadays it’s in your face. Our governments are driven to divide us & create a chasm of race-based division & the Labor govt is pushing for an Indigenous voice to parliament through a scheming referendum in 2023. We already have 11 Indigenous voices (Politicians) in parliament through the elections which per capita of indigenous is a great result already. Speaking of indigenous, it is a wrongly worded category, for I am indigenous too. I was born here! I can’t wait for the sheep to awake to the scheming Left Wing, Socialist, WOKENESS & Critical Race Theory BS world-wide & in Australia.

Moving on from politics & back to my Sydney journey, entry is free to the Sydney Museum and it is nice inside and well presented. The first display is a low-level table-like cabinet with the models of the entire 11 First Fleet ships & a summary of each including their respective details & history. I really liked this display for I have recently read an accurate history of the First Fleet heavily & accurately compiled from real ships journals in a book “Beating France to Botany Bay” by Margaret Cameron-Ash. An amazing insight into all facets involving the First Fleet & the real facts.

After the model ships you are provided paintings and prints of the historical commencement of the Sydney’s settlement and the city’s evolution including the ups & downs experienced including the diseases, slums, violence (robberies, fights & murder) & poor city planning with rapid immigration & trade. The next display is a film presentation which I found quite biased to the indigenous (Aboriginal) side & it was like a tweak to re-write history … as it was a shift from accurate settlement journals. Yes, there was illness, starvation, crop failures, etc but there was always an avenue presented for a positive connection with the aborigines even though each party was testing the other out, being the devil’s advocate. It was a bit one sided in my opinion, hence only the large Indigenous flag out the front of the building.

“Indigenous” is a term I struggle with. It was derived from Canada in recognising their original inhabitants but in Australia it has been twisted to meet an agenda of ‘First Nation’. To clarify, I am indigenous! I was born here, have an Australian Passport … so all of us sharing this birthplace are indigenous. Also, ‘First Nation’ is another political term to identify the aboriginal & Torres Strait people. These people never formed a nation when our First Fleet arrived. They were isolated tribes, some 200+ or so & they all did not have the same language either. BTW, I have many aboriginal friends & grew up with most of them, so don’t throw the racist card at me & they follow the same principles of me in regard to the political crap we are constantly bombarded with. Australia will this year have a referendum to change our Constitution to enable “A Voice to Parliament” where the ‘Indigenous people’ will have a tier of government to oversee, consult, approve or deny basically every government decision & to enable education, health & lifestyle to all indigenous people. The government is lying to us as there already is a voice presented with 11 indigenous politicians in our current parliament. The most ever. Also, the government has basically been paying indigenous councils, groups over $33Billion each year for decades but everyone knows this money goes to the elite indigenous people & groups & not where it is needed. Australia is being divided by the government by race.

With more city meandering & site seeing of city life I managed a good 11.73klms today but I do have to go out & find food for dinner later which in fact brought out a further 3klms seeking out a good steak hotel. I head home early tomorrow morning on the XPT (Regional Train of 10hrs) back to my birth town of Grafton & then a 50mins bus trip to Yamba, so there’s’ not much to write about these trips. Hope you enjoyed the last 5 days of my Sydney blogs & photos? Take care & all the best for 2023 & sincere thanks for reading my blogs. Keep scrolling down for all my blogs (good night reading to help you sleep … LOL!!!). Cheers.