AUS Days

[William]

then came the jet-ski lad

[William]

nice boats followed though









and this is a Sydney taxi try to take them on

[nedwalk]

ta william, nice pics, personely sydneys too big for me, but there are spots that arn,t too bad obviousley you have found some, i like the north shore, went out with a doctors daughter from near 'tumble down dick hill' st ives i think it was,, what a girl, she showed a boy from the bush the cross .. wha t a night 911 i think the car was.. and every thing else is a very good blury memory.. was long time ago..near 30 i reckon

[nedwalk]

^ 30 years ago that is,and the car was porsche, carrera? don,t rightly recall ,, very fast and her with no underwear.. mm its starting to come back now

[William]

Well, the weather here over the last few weeks has been crap. Raining all the time and cold as fuck!

But this morning it was wonderful. Cold, yes. But clear. So I jumped at the chance to quickly run off to Hyde Park and have a walk around.

I decided to go from the Liverpool Street end of the park to the St James end. As such, I went to Monument train station to begin the journey.

On exiting Mounment station I came out at Castlereagh Street. A wrong turn, but I'm glad it happened as I saw St George Presbyterian church



As it happens, the church is right next door to the Scientology Centre (is thatt he right term?) - but I didn't take a photo of that place.

However, right next door was this lovely old building



Now I don't know what it was originally used for, but it certainly looks like it could make a wonderful knocking shop

Anyhow, I digress. I needed to find the park and to do that I went to the corner of Bathurst Street and Elizabeth Street, where you'll see this

[William]

On entering the park the first thing you'll come across is the ANZAC memorial.

Here is the "Pond of Reflection" looking up to the memorial



and here's the memorial itself



now, I cannot leave this without saying "can anyone see the guy sitting on the steps on the left?" If so, I can tell you the board sign on the steps right in front of him says "Out of respect, please don't sit on the steps".

I felt a real paradox. The people for whom the memorial commemorates died to ensure the young man had the right to sit there, yet he could not respect that fact.

[William]

Anyhow, before I got my blood too boiled up, I moved on toward College Street. Next to the Australian Museum on College Street you'll come across one of the most wonderful water drinking fountains you'll ever see


and then you come across a statute to the man who "discovered Australia"


Captain Cook (and I promise it does say "Cook" and not "Cock" )



With the Australian Museum showing a Dinosaur show, and this being school holidays, I decided to give that a miss and walk on towards Sandringham Gardens

[William]

Now I'm guessing that Sandringham Gardens is named after the place in the UK. It certainly has the George Gates, which commemorate both George V and VI with this wonderful fountain

[William]

After that I moved on to the Archibald Fountain. Now the reason it is called the "Archibald Fountain" will soon become know, but it would have been my last guess!









anyhow, the reason it is called the "Archibald Fountain" is because a certain Mr. Archibald donated money to remember the "Association of Australia and France during the Great War". Now I could be wrong, but I would have said the least favourite people the Aussies had following WWI was the French



but there was also this



and the amazing thing was, they got me so in touch with the next section of this story

[William]

Listening to the Bag-Pipes somehow got me into the mood of taking photos of the flowers!

[William]

And so it was time to move on to St Mary's. The weather had turned bad and I was getting a little cold

[William]

Now you mat be wondering what "WYD" means. Let me tell you, in Sydney everyone knows about it - it's going to be worse than APEC!!

[William]

But the Catherdal itself is wonderful




and I did love these lamps

[Lady Hawk]

Lots of good pics and info william keep em coming

[William]

The problems is, they need to prepare for WYD



so you can only really get a small glimpse of the front of the Cathedral

and this I believe is a Cardinal


while this bloke is an Archbishop



and not being allowed entry into the Cathedral meant I had to walk on - but at least I got a look at Sky Tower (not sure that's the right name)

[William]

So I reach the back of the Cathedral



when I see this



now I'm not sure what this is called, but what I can tell you is that it is a monument to Zodiac signs - e.g. acquarias (in this case). I must have missed the part in class where Zodiac signs formed part of the Roman Catholic Church. Alternatively, sdomeone had a good sense of humour!

[William]

I should say that there must be a right and wrong name for "front" and "back" of a church, but I don't know it.

Anyhow, moving on down St James you get to see [what I think] is the Department of Lands building



and on the corner of Prince Albert Street you see the Old Cannon



and obviously you wouldn't be called "Prince Albert Street" without a statute to this bloke



but two things did interest me about this statute



First off, I did not know he was called "Albert the Good".

Second, I think this is the first statute that I have seen that pre-dates federation and mentions "the people of New South Wales", rather than Australia - but I could be wrong on this part as I'm still learning my Australian history (which will form part of my citizenship test)

[William]

Albert's statute needs to remind you that he was the Queens man. Victoria's statute doesn't even make mention that she was Queen of England. It's like they knew then, "this is Victoria, Queen of an Empire"

[Marmite the Dog]

Originally Posted by William

which will form part of my citizenship test

When's the lobotomy booked for?

[William]

Now it's the turn of the Anglicans. Yep, right next door to the Cathedral. Not too hard to tell that most in Australia follow the Roman version

[William]

So I reached the corner of Elizabeth and King Street. Now they have some wonderful buildings here








and then they have this gem. Now this has to be Sydney's ugliest building



and who does it belong to?



oh the shame, the shame..

[William]

And so I moved on, blinkered to the shame...

... now this is back on Castlereagh Street, but you need to know that in Sydney a few of the streets go for miles!

[William]

Because St Martin Place is the first place I stayed in Australia, I've always liked it



^Commonwealth Bank of Australia


The original MLC building


and this beauty.

[William]

And finally...

... can I ask that each of you who may have read the last few posts to please remember that this [coming] Friday 25 April 2008 is ANZAC Day

[TizMe]

Great Photos William. Sky Tower's real name is now Sydney Tower, but when I grew up it was always called Centrepoint Tower. I think it was also called AMP Tower at one stage.

I lived on the corner of King & Kent Streets in 1984. Sure wish now that I had bought the place rather than rented.