Sydney – boat heaven

We have enjoyed our final port of call – and what a port!

Captain Phillip of the first fleet in 1788, after his disappointment with Botany Bay, took 2 ships up the coast and discovered Port Jackson (Sydney harbour). He was delighted – here is a natural harbour – a place where 1000 ships of the line can safely berth (paraphrase). I hope you like David’s interesting perspective below!

Phillip was probably hoping the ships would turn up as I remember he had to wait a long time for supplies from England and the land here was poor for farming.

We enjoyed a tour of the harbour looking at boats of all kinds getting ready for their Saturday regattas

And lots of very swanky bayside properties

Including the residence of the Australian Prime Minister- now we know why they all want a go

And the lovely opera house, of course

It is a building way ahead of its time with very practical tiles that have stood the test of time

We went to pretty Watson’s Bay for an excellent fish lunch at Doyle’s right on the beach – it’s been there since 1885

Just behind is a good swimming beach – the water was fresh so not many Aussies in the water!

And up above are the lighthouse, cliffs and harbour entrance

On our pleasant stroll round South Head Park we finally heard a mob of laughing kookaburras!

We enjoyed our evening ferry back across the sparkling water

On Sunday we took in the market at The Rocks

There’s a statue here put up in the 1970s to the settler, marine and convict that claims the population of Australia was 400,000 in 1850 – this is obviously wrong as it ignores the aboriginals completely.

There is lip service to aboriginal culture here but no real attempt to atone for very bad racism in the past and present.

We enjoyed the botanical gardens and their views over the bay (with kookaburra)

Here’s a noisy miner bird

We saw a possum’s bottom:

And we sat on the steps of the opera house to see the ‘Dance Rites’ festival of aboriginal and island dances. The music was fabulous with amazing throbbing didgeridoos

These lads above are doing exactly the same hunting dance that we saw on a black and white film in the museum in Adelaide

And these handsome dancers are from islands in the Torres Strait – they are sharks coming in on the tide

It was good to see the musical side of aboriginal culture and the announcer was very upbeat – but there was one moving dance about a suicide with a hand-written notice reading: our mob has highest suicide rate. Suicide among young aboriginals is sadly at a crisis level – 5 times more per 100,000 than non indigenous.

David asks you to find me in this photo

Unfortately I had a migraine on our last full day here but David met Alastair Macdonald (Mac) – a BSB friend he hasn’t seen for 35 years!

He also looked after me like an Angel

Now we say goodbye to this wonderful continent where we have been delighted, entertained, and very well looked after.

I hope you have enjoyed travelling with us – thank you for following our odyssey!