6th September - Sydney

Following yesterday's 'Tour Day', we decided to have an 'Art Day' and, after watching the lady at the hostel reception desk labour at the computer and being permitted another night in the 6-bed dorm (yay!), we made our way to the docks to catch the free ferry to Cockatoo Island.

Cockatoo Island was a secondary penal colony and one of Australia's biggest ship-yards and, as part of the Biennale celebrations of the city, an exhibition was being held in the vast expanse of the corrugated iron ship-building sheds. Most of the cavernous rooms contained installations of contemporary visual arts, from the impressive to the pretentiously obscure. Our favourites were a detailed filigree cage cut from a shipping container and a massive array of giant polystyrene chains which draped over a collection of gigantic industrial machines.

The dog-leg tunnel and the old prison building about the island also housed installations, some of which were perfectly suited to their surroundings while others were overpowered by the beauty and decay of the buildings themselves. Unfortunately, it was one of those exhibitions where the 'explanatory plaques' didn't bother to illuminate the work but instead gave verbose, existential descriptions  that served only to confuse people, rather than give them insight into the motivations and messages of the work.

One of the most interesting areas was the Museum of Copulatory organs, which contained magnified images and models of the penises of tiny little insects; some of which could only be described as beautiful.

Less enthralling for us personally were the 'sculptures' of beeswax which mostly just looked like melted beeswax and a collection of stones and little glass bottles. Asking the staff on hand about them did elicit interesting background stories but they started Matt on his usual questioning spiral (to me of course, not them) of what art actually is.

We took the ferry back and went back to Subway because we were starving and we knew where it was, it was predictable, and Matt wanted to claim his free cookie for completing an online survey for them yesterday!

The evening was spent in the Museum of Contemporary Art where there was more of the Biennale, some indigineous cultures installations and a cool glass lift with views over the harbour. I particularly liked the work of a Thai guy called Kamin Lertchaiprasert who had used Thai Baht to make papier mache sculptures representing his insight into himself and his family and friends for every single day of the year. Not only were they interesting, moving and comical themselves, the sight of them stretching off down the wall museum made me feel a lot better about struggling with the mammoth task that I have set myself in writing this blog. And a lot more determined to complete it.

We were about to do a last scoot round of the things we hadn't seen (I do hate to leave things incomplete) when there was an announcement about a free tour of the Biennale work. We'd looked at those floors already but I couldn't resist so we went round them all again with the tour group. Although I was very tired and my feet were hurting I was really glad we did and I enjoyed the additional insight we got into the installations. 

The end of the night was spent watching crappy TV  in the common room and struggling to hear the 'dialogue' of 'Operation Repo' while tuning out the banging music and partying of drunken groups of hostelers at the other side of the kitchen. The contrast to our day led to an inevitable feeling of being old.

5th Sept - Sydney

We made ourselves popular in our dorm room by setting our alarm for 7 so we had time to sort out the SIM card before going on a tour. At least we only disturbed 4 other people instead of the 30 others we were meant to share a dorm room with.

We booked in for another night at reception and were thankfully allowed to stay in our current room instead of moving to 'The Church'.

We met the tour guide, Matt, at the Town Hall and were shepherded around with about 20 other people. We were introduced to St.Mary's Cathedral, the largest post-WW2 cathedral in the world, which was only finished in 2000, when the Olympcs came to Sydney.

Next, we saw a Queen Victoria statue that originally lived in Ireland. They didn't want it and so it was kept in storage for 40 years before being shipped to Australia and finding a new home outside the Queen Victoria Building (QVB) shopping centre.

Nearby was Queen Vic's dog, who guarded a wishing well raising money for charity and who had been given a voice by a popular Oz radio presenter to encourage people to donate.

We walked through QVB, looking at a few items of interest and were told about a letter that Queen Elizabeth II had left last time she visited. It was addressed to all the people of Sydney with a caveat that it could not be opened for 99 years. Matt and I entertained ourselves with the idea of what it might actually say.

Next major stop was Hyde Park, where there was a fountain that had been designed to signify the unity between Australia and France but seemed to be adorned using figures from Greek mythology, with Apollo looking rather grand on top!

We looked at Hyde Park Barracks heard a bit about Governor Macquarie and the first proper hospital that he wanted to have built because he had a vision of New South Wales becoming more than a penal colony.

The British Government refused to provide any money to build the hospital but Macquarie was determined and so garnered funds by promising a monopoly on rum production to a few major businessmen.

Some of the hospital still provides medical care but, since it was so extensive, the South Wing was commandeered by government to become the first mint in commonwealth outside of the British Isles and the north wing became parliament house.

After telling us more about Sydney's best practical joke and the locations which had been used in a number of films, we went to Australia Square to have a quick rest break and meet Bob: a very lifelike sculpture of a guy reading a newspaper, created by one the Johnsons (from Johnson & Johnson pharmaceuticals) who had been cut out of the will to the family fortune and so had to make a name for himself.

The rest of the tour explored 'the rocks' area at Sydney harbour, including some pubs and stories of 'pressganging', the bridge and how it was hated, and the Opera House - which the architect never saw completed after he was screwed over by the government.

We sat and made some phonecalls to Colleen and Anna before running into a lady we'd met on the tour called Andrea. She was very nice and was in Sydney with her husband and was just keeping herself entertained while he was at a conference. She had been a teacher before she retired and she loved to talk, so we listened to stories of her career and her own children before getting so hungry we needed to leave.

After lunch (oh Asia we do miss your food but I can't say it felt too awful to scoff a subway!), we walked the 1.3km over Harbour Bridge to the little town on the North Shore. We wanted to take a look at Luna park but there wasn't enough time so we just did a circuit and headed back over the bridge in time for the evening tour.

The tour guide initially came across as a quite a quiet, measured guy but as soon as he started guiding, he kicked into life and became this over-animated, squeaky, arm-flapper who constantly used upspeak, making everything sound like an indignant question. This was particularly emphasised when he was making a joke and Matt was soon squeezing my hand in anger.

He did show us some really great parts of 'the rocks' but we couldn't focus as much on content as we did tone. We saw some 'tiny, historic, terraced houses' the same age, size and build as ours, and wandered some of the smaller lanes hearing about the gangs and goings-on that used to occur there. We heard about the conditions that people lived in, the ways the convicts prospered (especially Mr Cobb, the butcher) and the dangers to sailors entering the area.

We walked past a number of pubs laying claim to being the 'oldest public house' in the area, the locations of public hangings and area of expensive redevelopment, including some flats on the wharf that would set you back over $14 million dollars for one apartment.

The last major stop was outside the observatory, where we got a lovely panoramic view of the city at night. We'd both become pretty tired of trying to tune in by then so all we remember is a hazy story about how instead of having the cannons pointing out to the sea, they had them pointing inwards to protect themselves against the convicts.

We supermarket shopped on the way back to the hostel and cooked and ate amongst the bustle of drunken 20-somethings who were earning more money than I was by waiting tables and typing up documents. Jealous? Me?