August 22, 2012

August 22, 2012

This morning we started off with the Sydney Art Museum. It was a snoozer. We then walked thru the Royal Botanic Garden, a huge park right in the center of downtown. The northern point of the park provides the classic postcard view of Sydney harbor.

We then caught up with the second half of yesterday’s walking tour and learned more of Australia’s early history. I laughed when I saw Sydney has a statue of Captain Bligh, the cruel Navy captain infamous for his crew mutinying in Tahiti. It turns out he became the second Governor of Australia and incredibly had a second mutiny of troops here during the Rum Rebellion. Australians think he was just unlucky and doesn’t deserve the bad rap.

After another hour of the walking tour, we got tired of playing tourist and decided to become locals. We left the tour again and had a mocha coffee at an outdoor café and then window shopped in the Rocks area for aborigine art and opals. The opal is the national gemstone of Australia. We found a piece of Aborigine art that we both like. Unfortunately the price tag is $9500. We spent a half hour inside the Rocks Discovery Museum. The first convicts sent to Australia were settled here in sort of an open-air jail. There wasn’t much need for walls. Where would the prisoners go?

In the late afternoon we went to the Opera House and sat at the outside café along the harbor. It is a beautiful spot with the Opera House on one side and the Harbor Bridge on the other. We drank a glass of wine while soaking up the ambiance. We didn’t want to give up our seat, so we ordered a bottle. We thought about ordering food, but seagulls attacked the few brave ones who did; we waited till dark to eat dinner. At 7pm we went in the Opera House to hear the Sydney Orchestra’s rendition of Brahms 2nd Symphony. The Hall had great acoustics, but the performance was probably wasted on us. I think the music would be better suited as a movie background, not a main event.