Travel Biography - Week 95

Of the six weeks spent Down Under, I found that taking to city life in Sydney was straightforward. Not that I had never camped out in the sticks under canvas, but always preferred to bed down for the night surrounded by masonry. Yet, my wife Alex was always keen on outdoor camping, but after over 24 years of marriage, has yet to set foot inside a backpacker's hostel.

Hence, the City Backpackers in the heart of Sydney was the largest hostel I stayed at in Australia, but not the largest in the world. That honour goes to HI-AYH New York City, featured in the Guinness Book of Records, where I stayed for over a week in 1998. 

Sydney City Monorail.

As I saw it, Sydney was so characteristically similar to London, that I have referred to it as London-by-the-Harbour. Unlike Singapore, little had changed over the following years. The Business District was already fully developed, a cluster of modern, tall office blocks overlooking the harbour estuary and across Darling Harbour. Further back, the streets were dominated by Victorian-era buildings, including the handsome shopping mall, and even the City Hostel itself, a former office block from the same era.

However, there has been one significant change since I arrived in Sydney in 1997. That is, the demolishing of the Monorail, which was fully operational in my day. Trains ran one way along the single track, forming a closed circuit suspended high above the streets, and serving eight stations spaced around the ring. The monorail circuit enclosed the Business District before crossing the waterway on the Pyrmont Bridge and passing through the Darling Harbour shopping precinct before returning back to the Financial District, thus completing a lap of 2.2 miles or 3.6 km. The Monorail was decommissioned on June 30, 2013, after just 25 years of service since opening in July 1988.

The main reason for such a short lifespan was due to its unpopularity with the locals, as it was at least 5.5 metres above the main streets. There was also the possibility that the Monorail didn't draw in as many tourists as hoped, thus with financial setbacks along with local unpopularity, it was decommissioned 25 years before its official closing year of 2038. In other words, the Monorail survived for just half its planned 50-year lifetime.

The Monorail Train glides above Pyrmont Bridge.

View of the single-track seen from the rear of a train.

On board the train passing over Pyrmont Bridge.

One morning, I took a ride on one of the Monorail trains, boarding and alighting at the same station, completing a full lap of the circuit. At 21 mph, the trains ran smoothly, having tyred wheels. By choosing the last carriage, I was able to see the track the train ran on from its rear window. The most spectacular view was when the train rolled along the pedestrian Pyrmont Bridge and the track was 5.5 metres above the walkway, thus giving fine views of the waterway as it approached the shopping precinct.

The Rocks, Harbour Bridge, and the Opera House. 

The Rocks were where Sydney had its beginnings. From 1788, the first settlers were Prisoners of His Majesty's Service, or POMS. From there, the city began to grow, especially during the reign of Queen Victoria, spreading out like a fan surrounding the river estuary. For many of its early days, the Rocks began to look like a slum estate, with visiting sailors, hard living, and prostitution. In a nutshell, the Rocks was a rough estate until the 1870s. However, by 1997, the Rocks has become a popular tourist spot. I spent an hour or two looking around and taking in the history of the area, with the famous arch of the Harbour Bridge looming above.

At the Rocks.

The Interior of the Queen Victoria Shopping Mall.

Castle Clock inside the Queen Victoria Building.

Manly Ferry sails towards Circular Quay.

And that was thanks to the Builders Labourers Federation in the late 1960s and the early seventies, many of the old warehouses were saved from demolishment and instead, modernised whilst retaining their historic look. The older, more original warehouse buildings in that area were retained rather than demolished for redevelopment. By 1997, the area has become a popular tourist spot.

And the bridge itself. One afternoon, I bought a ticket to ascend the southeast tower or turret, one of the four structures, two at each end of the arch. From there, I enjoyed a magnificent view of the harbour waterway with the Opera House in full prominence. Had it been summer, there would have been a flotilla of boats crowding the waterway. But I was there in July, hence their winter, when the only boats seen were ferries and cruising boats. If only I was there by midnight on December 31st. The harbour would have been crowded with privately owned vessels as well as the Opera House packed with spectators, all watching a magnificent firework display exploding from the arch of the bridge in the warm, summer air.

I must have spent a considerable amount of time at the turret lookout. The sun was preparing to set, and the structure's long and almost indistinct shadow almost touched the Opera House as it fell on the Manly Ferry as the ship pulled out of the Circular Quay. I was fortunate. The southeast turret was accessible to the public on certain days of the week, and I took full advantage.

One evening, I crossed the bridge on foot to get to the harbour's north side. Whilst doing so, I compared this bridge with the other world-famous bridge I walked along, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. While the latter was just a road bridge which carried Highway 101 from the city to Marin County, and featured a sidewalk, the Sydney Harbour Bridge carried a main road, a railway line, a cycleway, and a footpath. The Golden Gate Bridge is 1.7 miles or 2,740 metres long and is held up by suspension. By contrast, the Sydney Harbour Bridge has a total length of 1,149 metres, therefore shorter by 1,591 metres than the Golden Gate Bridge, and it is held up by a single-span steel arch.

When I arrived at the other end, I saw that here everything was so different. Instead of tall office blocks, I arrived at Kirribilli residential estate, a quiet, middle-class housing area very much the same as I saw at Palm Beach. Not far from the northern end of the bridge was a small shop where I bought some refreshments. The quieter, more sedate area of Sydney had made me almost forget that I was still in Australia's largest city.

And there was the Botanic Gardens, an area of greenery south of the Opera House and with its small, separate peninsula jutting into the estuary east of the Opera House. This small peninsula is the home of Mrs Macquarie's Chair, a stone bench set on a summit and offering views of the Harbour. However, although I did stroll to the tip of the headland, I didn't get around to seeing Mrs Macquarie's Chair itself, but I still enjoyed splendid views of the waterway, the Opera House backed by the Harbour Bridge. A splendid view during sunset.

As for the opera House, I entered the building twice. The first time was on the day I arrived in Sydney. In the morning, the building was closed. But by the afternoon, the doors had opened to allow visitors in to browse around (but not in the theatre itself) and to make bookings. During my first visit, I didn't consider attending any shows, as I was never theatre-oriented. However, after returning from the Blue Mountains National Park, I considered whether I would give up an evening to watch a show. I was in the Concert House, what appeared to be the larger building of the two. I bought a ticket, the cheapest one on the market, to watch that evening's piano concert.

That evening, I entered the theatre, dressed not in a suit-and-tie, but in my daily tracksuit befitting an Australian winter. I wasn't refused admission, however, I still had to follow the instructions printed on my ticket. I found my seat, right on the back row and at the highest and furthest point from the stage as the vast cavernous interior allowed. Yet, when the piano started to play, the sound came across so loud and clear, even over a distance without any echoing. This goes to show how advanced the acoustics were in such a large building. At first, I couldn't make out the tune, but as other band members joined in to sound a crescendo at the climax, I came to realise the meticulous skill needed to produce such a piece, and this skill was recognised by the whole audience. When the performance ended, we all stood up to applaud the musicians, making the air in the theatre electric with excitement.

How long the performance lasted, I wasn't sure, but it must be over an hour. There was even a half-time interlude which allowed me to check out the interior more thoroughly. After the end of the show and as we were making for the exit, I mentioned to a passerby about an advert for Puccini's Madame Butterfly opera held in the other building, as I was familiar with the story of this devoted Chinese ladylove patiently waiting for her fiance to return to marry her. When she found out that he married someone else whilst away, the Chinese girl committed suicide. And since the show was scheduled for the following week, I wouldn't be able to watch it, as by then I'll be across the Pacific in San Diego. Just then, a young man, apparently a student, having overheard, approached me and backed my desire to see the opera. I was surprised at his keenness.

Botanical Gardens seen from the Westfield Tower.

View from near Mrs Macquarie's Chair.

At Botanical Gardens, Sydney.

Archibald Fountain, Hyde Park, Sydney.

Another venue I visited was the Queen Victoria Building on Georges Street, further back from the quay. This building is topped with a cathedral-type dome, and although it houses a modern shopping mall, it is brimmed with history. There was one museum-type exhibit within the shopping precinct, the Foucault's Pendulum. The idea behind this swaying plumbline is that as the Earth rotates, the arc made by the swinging ball at the end of the line appears to rotate. It would be most effective at the Poles. Nearer the Equator, the rotation was more restricted, as I found out after returning to it after a couple of hours. There is, or was, a longer version of the pendulum housed in the Science Museum in London, hence I was already familiar with it here in Sydney.

The Lookout Tower Eye, better known as the Westfield Tower, or as I affectionately call the Gearstick, was, I believe, the highest skywalk in Sydney at 250 metres of the 309 metres from the ground to the tip of its spire. From it, I could make out both the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, each on either side of a tall office block that was obstructing the view of the Quay. From the other side was a splendid view of Hyde Park with its hexagonal Archibald Fountain. Also, St Mary Cathedral was nearby, adjacent to the park. A ticket allowed me to ride the fast elevator to the circular glass-panelled observation floor. Afterwards, I decided to attend mass at St Mary's, and after the service was over, the Bishop singled me out to give a personal greeting. I thought that was a wonderful gesture.

Soon, I would be vacating the Sydney City hostel to make my way to the international airport.

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Next week: an overview of the trip so far as I prepare to fly to California.