Sydney has been our home for over a year now and it was with sadness that we said goodbye. We had planned a few parting activities however…
Our apartment in Pyrmont had some views of the City, Harbour Bridge and Jones Bay Wharf that we will really miss. We were keen to capture as much of them as possible in photographs. This is not so easy with our level of artistic and technical skill. None-the-less we gave it a go. I even learnt how to use night mode (turn the little dial on top of the camera to the night mode position).
Here is the city at night from a cardboard box balanced precariously on a table on our balcony (lesser cameramen use tripods)…
Here is the view of Jones Bay Wharf at night…
And of course the Harbour Bridge…
We got a little carried away with how much we liked the outlook and decided to bring the bed into the front room and sleep with the curtains open for our last three nights. The photo below shows me asleep (the lump on the left) with Zoe awake watching the sunrise…
And finally a couple of pictures of us saying goodbye on our last day just before we handed the keys back…
Aside from gazing out of our balcony we also managed to get some last backgammon in.
On our last-but-one Sunday there was supposed to be a big Greek backgammon tournament at Georges. Unfortunately no-one turned up so we held a chouette instead. This suited me quite well as I prefer chouette to tournament play. Here Mario, Maurice, Alex, Jay, Harry and Zoe ponder a position…
On our last Sunday Ian invited us to a chouette at his lovely house in North Sydney. There were cockatoos in the garden which Zoe and I were very impressed with but everyone else thought they were vermin.
Here’s Jim, David, Ian and myself with Zoe taking the photo…
Regular readers of this blog (Pam, Paul, Colin, Susan, that strange pseudo-economist person) will know that it has been mainly dedicated to food. This is not just because Zoe and I are natural gluttens – we are further encouraged by the food in Sydney being very, very tasty.
The Fish Market in Sydney is the largest in the world outside of Japan. We will miss having it ten minutes down the road. On our last Friday I cooked a paella with mussels, moreton bay bug, fish, octopus, scallops, prawns and squid from the market,
Below is a photo of the octopus and I…
Choosing which restaurants to go to for our last few nights was tricky. There were so many places that we wanted to go back to and only so many days we had left. There was also a growing realisation that we might never go back again to those restaurants which didn’t make the cut.
One place we knew we had to visit was Blue Eye Dragon – our local Taiwanese restaurant - owned and run by the Chen’s who had taught us at the Sydney seafood school. We had been there quite a few times and Muriel Chen came over for a chat at the end of our meal. Muriel posed outside the restaurant at the end of the evening for a couple of photos with us…
Another favourite restaurant was East – a Chinese restaurant next to the Opera House. The food is fantastic, the view of the bridge spectacular and it’s a great spot for watching the world go by. We had booked weeks in advance for our 3rd to last day in Sydney and were lucky enough to be rewarded with the best table in the restaurant. This is the view from where we were sitting…
The lobster in ginger and shallot was particularly good.
On our last night we ate at Guillaume’s at Bennelong (the third sail of the Opera House). We decided to go for the 9 course degustation menu and were not disappointed. I had matching wines and felt a little light headed by the end of the night. Eating in one of the wonders of the modern world is quite an experience. And this time it was particularly special as it was our last night.
With our new found photographic knowledge (i.e. the night mode dial) we took a lot more photos of us walking round Circular Quay, the Rocks, Bennelong Point etc. We were also beginning to realise that we would no longer be able to go and see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge whenever we wanted to.
Here is Zoe sitting opposite the water from the Opera House…
These are some photos of the Bridge and Opera House that we took on our various walks on the last few nights…
One we took of the Opera House in the day time…
The Opera House Bar is a great place to go for a drink. It is always full of life and the views are good. Buoyed by my success with the night mode button I decided to try the timer function to take a photo of Zoe and I in the Opera Bar with the Bridge in the background. I was quite pleased with the result…
On our last but one night we walked over the Harbour Bridge for the last time. Here are a couple of photos taken from the Bridge of the Opera House and the Opera House and the City…
This is me between the sails of the Opera House…
And here’s Zoe on the steps of the Opera House (if you can’t see her zoom in on the photo)…
Perhaps I have developed an unhealthy attachment to the Opera House. This is a photo of me cuddling it to say goodbye…
The logistics of leaving
Packing up and moving 17,000 kilometres over the other side of the world is more difficult than you might imagine. We sent 6 boxes of books back by sea mail, gave away half our furniture to a colleague from work, had a removalist team take the rest of the furniture to the tip, packed 5 suitcases of clothes and miscellaneous possessions, put two of those suitcases in storage in Sydney for a month along with my guitar and threw masses of possessions in the bin (including tipping 14 bottles of wine down the sink). There were also superannuation payments, tax, water, gas, electricity, e-tags etc. to sort out. A bit of a nightmare but we got through it. The fact that I had time off before leaving definitely helped.
Holiday!
On Thursday we got on a plane from Sydney to Hobart, Tasmania.
My luggage weighed 11 kg.
Zoe’s weighed 32 kg.
The limit per person on Jet Star is 20 kg.
Fortunately they allowed us to average our suitcases and then let us off the extra few kilos. We were not so lucky on the flight from Hobart to Sydney where they made us pay.
Zoe claimed that her luggage was heavier than mine because she had one of my (small paperback) books in her bag.
On arriving in Hobart we put our luggage in the hotel and wandered around the centre.
We found a great 2nd hand bookshop where I bought Scarne on Dice (recommended reading from Danny Kleinman’s ‘The Dice Conquer All’) and Stanford Wong’s book on Blackjack (the classic text following on from Thorpe’s work in ‘Beat the Dealer’).
We went back to the hotel for an afternoon nap and in the evening went to walk round the harbour and Salamanca.
We found a nice restaurant by the Harbour called Mures and we both had fish and chips.
The waitress kindly took a photo of us…
Tasmania makes a lot of cheese and it seemed churlish to come all this way without trying some of their local produce.
My Tasmanian Cheese platter (half consumed)…
Mures from the outside…
We spent the first half of Friday morning in the Hobart museum and art gallery. This was one of the best museums we have been to in Australia.
Zoe met a Muttaburrasauras…
After the museum we felt that we had seen most of Hobart (it’s a small place) and decided to hire a car a drive to Port Arthur – the historic site of one of the first penal settlements here.
Unfortunately the hire place only had a big 4-wheel drive but I managed to get the hang of it and didn’t kill anyone…
On the way to Port Arthur there is a ‘historic town’ called Richmond. We thought we’d have a look round it and were very pleased that we did. The first place we came to advertised two mazes and a tea room. It is hard to imagine how one could possibly improve on such a place. Possibly a third maze?
The first maze was quite easy but none-the-less I felt some satisfaction at reaching the centre…
The 2nd maze was much harder and had a minotaur and password at the centre…
The secret code…
After conquering the mazes we had a well-deserved cup of tea.
Walking up through Richmond we briefly considered dressing up as Victorians and having our picture taken before venturing instead into the model village – a 1/16 scale replica of Hobart…
After the model village we got back in the car for the drive down the Tasman Peninsula to Port Arthur.
There were some remote locations on the way where you could stop and admire the view.
Zoe on a deserted beech on the way to Port Arthur…
Zoe coming out the sea on another deserted beech…
Another view…
Port Arthur penal station was established in 1830 and in 1833 became a punishment station for repeat offenders from all the Australian colonies. By 1840 over 2000 convicts, soldiers and civil staff lived there. The site is now one large archaeological/tourist site.
Here is Zoe being sentenced for stealing a sheep…
Here’s the actual site itself…
Habitual, sullen criminals were imprisoned here. Born villains upon whose nature nurture can never stick…
Of course there were some tragic miscarriages of justice as well…
One of the more hideous things in Port Arthur was the Separate Prison. Traditionally convicts had been brutalised and made to work. This however didn’t seem to rehabilitate many people. In the early 19th Century new ideas started to take hold about more ‘humane’ ways of rehabilitating offenders. The Separate Prison was one such idea. Offenders were locked in solitary confinement for a period of 4-12 months. An hour exercise was allowed a day but convicts had to wear masks to stop them seeing or talking to other inmates.
Even the chapel had separate compartments so that inmates could not see or talk to one another while being lectured to about God. Here is Zoe in a separate pew being lectured at…
Little is recorded about the outcomes from the Separate Prison but unsurprisingly many ex-inmates went quite mad.
Fortunately we don’t do this to convicts any more. Only to unlawful combatants.
After driving back from Port Arthur we had dinner in Salamanca at a tasty Greek restaurant. The highlight was the grilled octopus.
The next day we packed our bags checked out of the hotel and drove up Mount Wellington. The drive is pretty treacherous up some fairly steep mountain but fortunately I was in a snazzy blue car…
Mt Wellington was very windy and cold but the vista was breathtaking. Here is the view of Hobart from Mt Wellington…
Only the very bravest could beat the elements and reach the summit…
After Mt Wellington we drove to Cradle Mountain – about a 3 ½ hour drive through some unbelievable countryside…
Here are a few of the landscapes along the way…
We arrived at the hotel and booked in for dinner. Zoe has a habit of sticking her nose right next to sauces to smell them. Here she got a bit close (perhaps helped by a slight push from me) and ended up with red stuff over her nose!
The next day we went on a number of walks around the Cradle Mountain National Park. They were spectacular. Unfortunately our camera broke half way round but a few of the images we did get are below…
The guide book described the walks we did as ‘easy-moderate’. This photo was taken at one of the more ‘moderate’ sections of track…
On our way to Marion’s Lookout Zoe spotted a Bennet Wallaby. David Attenborough eat your heart out…
Just after this the camera broke (the zoom stopped zooming and the camera started beeping).
We ended doing two walks taking in Ronney Creek, Marion’s Lookout, Wombat Pool and Dove Lake. We walked about 14 kilometres and were very tired when we got back.
No time for sleeping though! Cheese and wine tasting with the Bar and Restaurant Manager took us through to a Spotlight Tour where we saw Rufus Wallabies, Bennet Wallabies, wombats and a possum followed by dinner and some much needed sleep.
We have just landed in Melbourne and are in the hotel waiting to go out for dinner.
Update: We are back from dinner which was good. Tired again though. Looking forward to exploring Melbourne tomorrow.
Our apartment in Pyrmont had some views of the City, Harbour Bridge and Jones Bay Wharf that we will really miss. We were keen to capture as much of them as possible in photographs. This is not so easy with our level of artistic and technical skill. None-the-less we gave it a go. I even learnt how to use night mode (turn the little dial on top of the camera to the night mode position).
Here is the city at night from a cardboard box balanced precariously on a table on our balcony (lesser cameramen use tripods)…
Here is the view of Jones Bay Wharf at night…
And of course the Harbour Bridge…
We got a little carried away with how much we liked the outlook and decided to bring the bed into the front room and sleep with the curtains open for our last three nights. The photo below shows me asleep (the lump on the left) with Zoe awake watching the sunrise…
And finally a couple of pictures of us saying goodbye on our last day just before we handed the keys back…
Aside from gazing out of our balcony we also managed to get some last backgammon in.
On our last-but-one Sunday there was supposed to be a big Greek backgammon tournament at Georges. Unfortunately no-one turned up so we held a chouette instead. This suited me quite well as I prefer chouette to tournament play. Here Mario, Maurice, Alex, Jay, Harry and Zoe ponder a position…
On our last Sunday Ian invited us to a chouette at his lovely house in North Sydney. There were cockatoos in the garden which Zoe and I were very impressed with but everyone else thought they were vermin.
Here’s Jim, David, Ian and myself with Zoe taking the photo…
Regular readers of this blog (Pam, Paul, Colin, Susan, that strange pseudo-economist person) will know that it has been mainly dedicated to food. This is not just because Zoe and I are natural gluttens – we are further encouraged by the food in Sydney being very, very tasty.
The Fish Market in Sydney is the largest in the world outside of Japan. We will miss having it ten minutes down the road. On our last Friday I cooked a paella with mussels, moreton bay bug, fish, octopus, scallops, prawns and squid from the market,
Below is a photo of the octopus and I…
Choosing which restaurants to go to for our last few nights was tricky. There were so many places that we wanted to go back to and only so many days we had left. There was also a growing realisation that we might never go back again to those restaurants which didn’t make the cut.
One place we knew we had to visit was Blue Eye Dragon – our local Taiwanese restaurant - owned and run by the Chen’s who had taught us at the Sydney seafood school. We had been there quite a few times and Muriel Chen came over for a chat at the end of our meal. Muriel posed outside the restaurant at the end of the evening for a couple of photos with us…
Another favourite restaurant was East – a Chinese restaurant next to the Opera House. The food is fantastic, the view of the bridge spectacular and it’s a great spot for watching the world go by. We had booked weeks in advance for our 3rd to last day in Sydney and were lucky enough to be rewarded with the best table in the restaurant. This is the view from where we were sitting…
The lobster in ginger and shallot was particularly good.
On our last night we ate at Guillaume’s at Bennelong (the third sail of the Opera House). We decided to go for the 9 course degustation menu and were not disappointed. I had matching wines and felt a little light headed by the end of the night. Eating in one of the wonders of the modern world is quite an experience. And this time it was particularly special as it was our last night.
With our new found photographic knowledge (i.e. the night mode dial) we took a lot more photos of us walking round Circular Quay, the Rocks, Bennelong Point etc. We were also beginning to realise that we would no longer be able to go and see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge whenever we wanted to.
Here is Zoe sitting opposite the water from the Opera House…
These are some photos of the Bridge and Opera House that we took on our various walks on the last few nights…
One we took of the Opera House in the day time…
The Opera House Bar is a great place to go for a drink. It is always full of life and the views are good. Buoyed by my success with the night mode button I decided to try the timer function to take a photo of Zoe and I in the Opera Bar with the Bridge in the background. I was quite pleased with the result…
On our last but one night we walked over the Harbour Bridge for the last time. Here are a couple of photos taken from the Bridge of the Opera House and the Opera House and the City…
This is me between the sails of the Opera House…
And here’s Zoe on the steps of the Opera House (if you can’t see her zoom in on the photo)…
Perhaps I have developed an unhealthy attachment to the Opera House. This is a photo of me cuddling it to say goodbye…
The logistics of leaving
Packing up and moving 17,000 kilometres over the other side of the world is more difficult than you might imagine. We sent 6 boxes of books back by sea mail, gave away half our furniture to a colleague from work, had a removalist team take the rest of the furniture to the tip, packed 5 suitcases of clothes and miscellaneous possessions, put two of those suitcases in storage in Sydney for a month along with my guitar and threw masses of possessions in the bin (including tipping 14 bottles of wine down the sink). There were also superannuation payments, tax, water, gas, electricity, e-tags etc. to sort out. A bit of a nightmare but we got through it. The fact that I had time off before leaving definitely helped.
Holiday!
On Thursday we got on a plane from Sydney to Hobart, Tasmania.
My luggage weighed 11 kg.
Zoe’s weighed 32 kg.
The limit per person on Jet Star is 20 kg.
Fortunately they allowed us to average our suitcases and then let us off the extra few kilos. We were not so lucky on the flight from Hobart to Sydney where they made us pay.
Zoe claimed that her luggage was heavier than mine because she had one of my (small paperback) books in her bag.
On arriving in Hobart we put our luggage in the hotel and wandered around the centre.
We found a great 2nd hand bookshop where I bought Scarne on Dice (recommended reading from Danny Kleinman’s ‘The Dice Conquer All’) and Stanford Wong’s book on Blackjack (the classic text following on from Thorpe’s work in ‘Beat the Dealer’).
We went back to the hotel for an afternoon nap and in the evening went to walk round the harbour and Salamanca.
We found a nice restaurant by the Harbour called Mures and we both had fish and chips.
The waitress kindly took a photo of us…
Tasmania makes a lot of cheese and it seemed churlish to come all this way without trying some of their local produce.
My Tasmanian Cheese platter (half consumed)…
Mures from the outside…
We spent the first half of Friday morning in the Hobart museum and art gallery. This was one of the best museums we have been to in Australia.
Zoe met a Muttaburrasauras…
After the museum we felt that we had seen most of Hobart (it’s a small place) and decided to hire a car a drive to Port Arthur – the historic site of one of the first penal settlements here.
Unfortunately the hire place only had a big 4-wheel drive but I managed to get the hang of it and didn’t kill anyone…
On the way to Port Arthur there is a ‘historic town’ called Richmond. We thought we’d have a look round it and were very pleased that we did. The first place we came to advertised two mazes and a tea room. It is hard to imagine how one could possibly improve on such a place. Possibly a third maze?
The first maze was quite easy but none-the-less I felt some satisfaction at reaching the centre…
The 2nd maze was much harder and had a minotaur and password at the centre…
The secret code…
After conquering the mazes we had a well-deserved cup of tea.
Walking up through Richmond we briefly considered dressing up as Victorians and having our picture taken before venturing instead into the model village – a 1/16 scale replica of Hobart…
After the model village we got back in the car for the drive down the Tasman Peninsula to Port Arthur.
There were some remote locations on the way where you could stop and admire the view.
Zoe on a deserted beech on the way to Port Arthur…
Zoe coming out the sea on another deserted beech…
Another view…
Port Arthur penal station was established in 1830 and in 1833 became a punishment station for repeat offenders from all the Australian colonies. By 1840 over 2000 convicts, soldiers and civil staff lived there. The site is now one large archaeological/tourist site.
Here is Zoe being sentenced for stealing a sheep…
Here’s the actual site itself…
Habitual, sullen criminals were imprisoned here. Born villains upon whose nature nurture can never stick…
Of course there were some tragic miscarriages of justice as well…
One of the more hideous things in Port Arthur was the Separate Prison. Traditionally convicts had been brutalised and made to work. This however didn’t seem to rehabilitate many people. In the early 19th Century new ideas started to take hold about more ‘humane’ ways of rehabilitating offenders. The Separate Prison was one such idea. Offenders were locked in solitary confinement for a period of 4-12 months. An hour exercise was allowed a day but convicts had to wear masks to stop them seeing or talking to other inmates.
Even the chapel had separate compartments so that inmates could not see or talk to one another while being lectured to about God. Here is Zoe in a separate pew being lectured at…
Little is recorded about the outcomes from the Separate Prison but unsurprisingly many ex-inmates went quite mad.
Fortunately we don’t do this to convicts any more. Only to unlawful combatants.
After driving back from Port Arthur we had dinner in Salamanca at a tasty Greek restaurant. The highlight was the grilled octopus.
The next day we packed our bags checked out of the hotel and drove up Mount Wellington. The drive is pretty treacherous up some fairly steep mountain but fortunately I was in a snazzy blue car…
Mt Wellington was very windy and cold but the vista was breathtaking. Here is the view of Hobart from Mt Wellington…
Only the very bravest could beat the elements and reach the summit…
After Mt Wellington we drove to Cradle Mountain – about a 3 ½ hour drive through some unbelievable countryside…
Here are a few of the landscapes along the way…
We arrived at the hotel and booked in for dinner. Zoe has a habit of sticking her nose right next to sauces to smell them. Here she got a bit close (perhaps helped by a slight push from me) and ended up with red stuff over her nose!
The next day we went on a number of walks around the Cradle Mountain National Park. They were spectacular. Unfortunately our camera broke half way round but a few of the images we did get are below…
The guide book described the walks we did as ‘easy-moderate’. This photo was taken at one of the more ‘moderate’ sections of track…
On our way to Marion’s Lookout Zoe spotted a Bennet Wallaby. David Attenborough eat your heart out…
Just after this the camera broke (the zoom stopped zooming and the camera started beeping).
We ended doing two walks taking in Ronney Creek, Marion’s Lookout, Wombat Pool and Dove Lake. We walked about 14 kilometres and were very tired when we got back.
No time for sleeping though! Cheese and wine tasting with the Bar and Restaurant Manager took us through to a Spotlight Tour where we saw Rufus Wallabies, Bennet Wallabies, wombats and a possum followed by dinner and some much needed sleep.
We have just landed in Melbourne and are in the hotel waiting to go out for dinner.
Update: We are back from dinner which was good. Tired again though. Looking forward to exploring Melbourne tomorrow.
posted by Zoe and Sean at 8:14 PM
2 Comments:
Blimey, you leaving Sydney made us feel even more sad than when we left it ourselves. Still, Tasmania was a great 'pick you up' and looks to be increadibly beautiful. Hope the camera gets better for the next stages of the adventure. See you in 23 days. Love P&P
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