Australia Day 23-27: Sights around Sydney

​Over the last few days, we had a variety of adventures around Sydney.  We enjoyed looking at all the different kinds of architecture, meeting local people wherever we went and taking in the sights of this marvelous city.

Our hotel was right around the corner from Hyde Park.  We had a lovely morning walking around there, visiting gardens and fountains, watching an Aboriginal Land Rights March and visiting the NSW ANZAC memorial.

The ANZAC Memorial in Sydney is impressive - a monumental building set on a hill, flanked by water features and a cascading waterfall. Inside, in the center is a powerfully evocative bronze statue, titled “Sacrifice.” It depicts a young man on his back, head, arms and legs hanging down, held up by three women - a wife, a mother and a sister. All around the bottom are all the wars in which Australians have served. And the dome has a golden star for every everyone who took part in WWI - really powerful.

Near Hyde Park, we visited the modern wing of the  Sydney Art museum which is a beautiful airy building, where we were delighted to find a large exhibit of aboriginal art, complete with information about the artists AND the story behind the paintings. Of particular interest was the fact that many of the large paintings were painted to document the aboriginal tribes presence in the land as part of the effort to return custodianship to them.

Further down the hill, we visited the  Sydney Botanical Garden which was a total delight! There were lots of winding paths through plants from different habitats, many huge trees that lined and dotted large swaths of  grassy lawns, much of it looking out over the harbor. There were also BIRDS, including  a kookuburra!

One morning, after a walk around town, we visited the Queen Victoria Building (QVB) which was a shopping mall with small versions of many designer shops and the entire center full of pastry shops!  Like some of the old shopping laneways in Melbourne, the building evoked a bygone

We spent a lovely evening at the Opera House attending  a performance of Romeo and Juliet, by the Sydney Ballet. That was a real treat!  We enjoyed seeing the House at night, including the light show shown every night on the Opera house shells. 

We spent one day at the lovely Taranga Zoo, an easy ferry ride from Circular Quay.  It took all day to see all the different animals - the zoo was beautifully laid out, with leafy, spacious, tropical enclosures for most of the animals.  We especially liked the gorilla feeding and the kangaroo area.

On our last day we ventured to Darling Harbor.  We stopped on the way to visit the Chinese Friendship Garden which was full of cool rocks and water features.  It was a lovely, peaceful urban oasis.

At the Harbor we continued on to see the Maritime Museum.  We enjoyed learning about the history and beliefs of the Torres Straits Islander population, especially a multimedia presentation about the Dreamtime - very cool, even if it did make us a bit dizzy!  Dreamtime is term used to describe the many creation stories of the aboriginal peoples. This presentation started with water, with the gradual emergence of land, with humans finally forming from the stars, all accompanied by aboriginal singing.

The Darling Harbor Bridge is the oldest electrically operated swing span in the world (we also saw one in Beaufort SC last October).  It was fun to watch it spin while we ate our lunch. From that spot we also saw a replica of Captain Cook's ship Endeavor, and several Australian Navy ships.

We ate and drank and walked and learned.  Such a fun city to rest and relax.