Water Baby

Sleeping Buddha, Chinese Garden of Friendship, Sydney, New South Wales

I turned left today when I left the hotel, and headed down towards Darling Harbour.

First stop was the Chinese Garden of Friendship. This is a gorgeous, intimate green space built by the Chinese community of Sydney with the people of China at the centenary celebrations to commemorate the bonds between the two countries, its an oasis of calm in the bustling city. And it's quite popular too. There weren't many people about when I arrived not long after it opened, but it wasn't long before it was teaming with tourists and artists, taking their stools and opening their sketch books. I spent a lovely couple of hours there, wandering and it has to be said, waiting for people get out of my shots. Bloody tourists! :-)

From there I continued on down to Cockle Bay and the Australian Maritime Museum. They have a few ships docked alongside the harbour and three that you can board. HMAS Vampire was a destroyer decommissioned in the mid-80's. launched in 1956 she saw action in Indonesia and Vietnam before being converted to a training ship. HMAS Onslow is an Oberon class submarine, launched in 1968. She was decommissioned in 1999. I was told I'd need to check in my back pack and camera bag before going on board the sub. No wonder! I expected space to be tight but wow, it really was very tight. It was a one way trip, entering at the front through the forward torpedo loading hatch, you travel back through the confined spaces to the rear loading hatch. Since these hatches are designed to load the torpedoes at an angle, you have to turn into a wee bit of a contortionist to get through them. Lots of fun! :-)

The final ship is a replica of HMS Endeavour, Captain James Cook's famous ship. The HM Bark Endeavour is a working ship that routinely takes crews out to let them try life on a tall ship. It has also previouslyrecreated the famous trips of Cook. I've been on board tall ships before but this was a bit different from those experiences. As confined as the Onslow was vertically, endeavour was horizontally. Apparently, to fit in everyone and everything Cook needed for his voyage, he had an extra level put in with the introduction of an intermediate deck. Of course, this meant that space below decks was a lot lower than normal. I'm sure a munchkin or Oompa Loompa would have to bend over to get through the crews quarters and mess. Up a deck further and we came to the gentlemen's quarters. Originally the senior officers cabins, Endeavour's compliment of civilian guests took them over. Even in the more spacious quarters, at 5'6" even I could only stand up between the rafters of the deck above. James Cook at over 6' would have still had to have bent over in his own cabin.

It was a late lunch at the museum cafe and another new taste. Fish and chips using Barramundi. Lovely it was too! Then it was inside. There was an Ansel Adams exhibition on at the museum, celebrating his works with water. There were some amazing images on show and a couple of compositions that I'd love to be able to try out while I'm over here. Watch this space... maybe! :-) I could have easily spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the museum, but time was moving on and I really wanted to get to the aquarium. Coming up for 4pm I wasn't sure how much time I'd have. When I got there and discovered they were open until 8pm I really should have gone back to the museum but I didn't and instead took my turn to wander round the aquarium. It was fabulous. So many different species and every child passing by were either asking or telling accompanying parents which was Dory and which was Nemo. ;-) Halfway through you moved down into the big underwater viewing areas. They were amazing, watching the fish and sharks swimming by and over you. A real treat and nice end to the day.

I say end because it was back to the hotel and into the guest laundry for me tonight. I swear I'm doing more washing just now than I do at home. How does that work! ;-)