It was a fairly early start this morning, as we had to be down in the lobby to meet our transport at 8.30. It was a fairly uneventful trip to the airport, a fairly uneventful flight, and an uneventful trip in to Sydney. The only notable thing was leaving Hobart in 15 degrees C and arriving in Sydney in 27 degrees!
We checked in to our hotel about 2, and it took some time to sort ourselves out, book a trip to the Blue Mountains, and decide what to do with the remains of our day. We are in a different part of Sydney for 2 days, then we move back to the place we were in before. At present we are near Darling Harbour, so we are near a couple of Museums, and we consulted their web sites and settled for the Australian National Maritime Museum. It wasn't quite as close as it looked, so we didn't have as much time there as we had hoped, because it was a really interesting Museum.
Practically the first thing you notice when you go in is Spirit of Australia, the world's fastest boat. It was designed and built in his backyard by a man called Ken Warby specifically to beat the existing world water speed record. It was made from wood, plywood, fibreglass and aluminium, and had an old aircraft engine. In 1977 he broke the existing record by achieving 288.6 mph. Almost a year later, he achieved 317.6 mph and this record still stands. Unaccountably, I seem to have cut the boat's nose off in my picture!
There are not just maritime things there, there is quite a lot of information about Aboriginal people, and the emphasis is on explaining that early explorers regarded the land as empty, when in fact people had been living there for thousands of years. Below is an example of some art works from 80 that were produced to explain a particular group's ownership and histories of an area of Arnhem Land.
Interestingly enough, James Cook was supposed to negotiate with any natives he found there, but did not do so because he found no growing crops. He said the natives did not grow crops, just wandered about finding food, and he obviously regarded this as not owning the land.
Outside there is a collection of historic boats, probably the most interesting being a restored tall ship, the barque James Craig, built in 1874, and restored after being found derelict in Tasmania.
There is normally a replica of Endeavour, but she is currently circumnavigating Australia. She has been replaced by a replica of the Duyfken, a Dutch ship which made the first recorded European visit to Australia in 1606.
The one I liked best was Krait, originally a fishing boat, which was used to evacuate people from Singapore during the Japanese advance in World War II. After that, it was used for a surprise night raid on Japanese shipping in Singapore harbour. It sailed from Western Australia with a mixture of British and Australians aboard, masquerading as a local fishing boat. On 26th September 1943, commandoes paddling folding canoes planted limpet mines that either blew up or damaged 7 enemy ships. I kept remembering Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, with the folding canoe constantly folding up with Monsieur Hulot inside it!
We spent quite a while wandering around Darling Harbour, which has been considerably developed as an entertainment centre. I don't think I've ever seen so many fountains in one small area, and the lovely sound of running water is very cooling on a hot day. There was a deep circular one, something in the style of Princess Diana's one in London, full of children and seagulls, one which was a 12 foot high wall of water, any number of small different shaped jets in trenches, and this rather spectacular one with different jets.
We had hoped to be able to go into the Chinese Friendship Garden, but it was closed. We managed to see some of it from outside.
As we had skipped lunch, we had early supper in a Food Court in Chinatown, which is also near our hotel.
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