Day Twenty-Six – An early morning swim & a good walk.

Before you get too excited we didn’t swim but watched hundreds of others doing so as today was the day for the annual Sydney Harbour swim. After hearing on the television this morning of the third shark attack in the area within the last three weeks there was an air of great anticipation in the crowd. After a short celebrity race of 800m , the main event consisted of 1km and 2km races. The 1km race being won by a nineteen year girl who announced that she was going to get a drink and then swim the 2km event, some people do show off. Fortunately there was no sign of any sharks and the swim passed off peacefully.

The race was held from the steps of the Opera House just inside the Botanical Gardens. These gardens occupy around 74 acres in the heart of the city and are home to a magnificent collection of plants,shrubs and trees from Australia and overseas. We decided to walk across the path to the area known as Woolloomooloo and took the following photos on the route.

  

The reason for the walk through the park was to visit one of Sydney’s most famous eateries, Harry’s Cafe de Wheels, a mobile snack van that has been part of the city’s life since 1945. Here I had a bacon & egg roll and Sylvia had a hot dog and we joined the list of the rich and famous who had ate here. These include Elton John,Brigitte Bardot and even Colonel Sanders (probably testing out the opposition) and of course…Rolf Harris. From Harrys it was a short walk to the art gallery of New South Wales, where we had a stroll around the 20th Century Australian exhibition. It was a pleasant way to spend a Sunday morning but I wasn’t overly impressed by the collection.

The walk continued across the area known as “The Domain”,into Hyde Park to look at St. Mary’s Cathedral. We were unsure as we approached whether this was an Anglican or a Roman Catholic church,  but the statue outside of Pope John Paul gave the game away. We didn’t go in as there was a mass in progress but sat outside and admired the spires which were finished in 2000.

Over the precinct from the cathedral stands the Australian Museum that in addition to being the nation’s premier showcase of natural history, contains a brilliant exhibition of “Indigenous Australians”. This contains many artefacts of the Aboriginal people and explained many of their beliefs and faith known as “The Dreaming”. We also had a presentation of native songs and dances including a performance on the didgeridoo, which was quite remarkable even though I kept thinking he was going to burst into “Sun Arise”.

Across the road and back into Hyde Park we passed the Anzac Memorial,  built to commemorate the Australians who were killed in the wars,before entering a food and drink fair. Here people were sampling wines from all over Australia and food from across the World.As it was now getting quite warm we decided to walk further into town to eat inside. After eating we walked back to the hotel passing several street entertainers on the quay. Of particular note was a female contortionist who attracted a large crowd with her amazing athletics.

It was reported in a Sydney paper earlier this week that one of the few areas that the economy was improving was cruising and today was referred to as “Super Sunday” in Sydney as there were no less than 4 cruise ships in port. At the overseas passenger terminal was “Crystal Serenity”, at Darling Harbour “Pacific Dawn”, and out in the bay “Celebrity Millennium” and “Aurora”. It was no wonder that Sydney has been buzzing all weekend and with another ship  due in the morning it will make eight since “Rhapsody” left on Tuesday night.