We decided to walk across the bridge this morning to visitor information, there is a pathway one side and a cycle track the other so you don’t have to worry about dodging cyclists. The good news is that you walk on the side of the Sydney Opera house so you get a good view of that all the way across. I can’t get over how small it looks, I don’t think it is much bigger than the Festival Hall at Waterloo but I could be wrong. The bridge is actually 1km across and there are stairs at each end to get you to road level, they have also put in a lift at either end so despite it being a glass lift Chris didn’t hesitate to get in it for the ride up. Once we got to the other side we went to Visitor Information hoping to get a more comprehensive map than the one we have, we also picked up a couple more walks in case we run out of things to do. We walked through the CBD to Hyde Park which is a really nice green in the middle of the office / shopping district then started the walk around Domain and the Botanical Garden. Just past Hyde Park the Domain is actually a heritage listed area with both open space and historical buildings, it is where the original barracks were located, used to house convicts and later on immigrants it is also where Sydney Hospital is which is the oldest working hospital in Australia, it looks a bit like the Royal Berks in Reading but also seemed to be quite busy. Apparently in the 1930s there were plans to pull the buildings down but the outbreak of WWII stopped this and by the time the war was over thankfully someone had realised the value of the buildings. We went into the Barracks which is now a museum which was both interesting and frustrating at the same time. They have kept the shell of the building but somehow despite calling it a living museum they don’t really tell many stories there is a room laid out as it would have been when the convicts were there and a display with a lot of ‘personal’ stories but there is a lot of quite in depth reading to be done to find anything out. The building was built between 1817 and 1819 to provide secure night lodgings for government assigned male convicts. An average of 600 men lived in the building sleeping in hammocks which were strung out in 12 rooms. During the day ‘inmates would go out to work and return for meals and to sleep. Once transportation to Sydney finished in 1840 the remaining inmates were transferred to Cockatoo Island which is also in the harbour and the prison was transferred into an Immigration Depot for Females. Basically this meant that the hammocks were replaced with iron beds but not much else changed. From 1848 – 1886 there was a mass migration of both orphans and females looking for a better life. As the colony had been built predominantly with males there was a distinct shortage of women so assisted passage was made available to those who were willing to relocate. About 4000 women were offered passage and jobs if they proved themselves to be of ‘good character’. They earned significantly more in Australia than they did in England, there would effectively be ‘job fairs’ held at the barracks where anyone that was looking for a domestic servant of any kind could come and bid for the girls apparently demand was far greater than supply and many employers went away empty handed. From the stories they had on display the majority of the women seemed to come from either Ireland because their parents and/or family had died in the potato famine or Scotland for similar reasons. In 1862 part of the barracks was turned into a Government Asylum for aged, informed and destitute women. The upper floor was converted and an external stairway was added to allow the women to access the courtyard laundry, kitchen and bathhouse. Finally in 1887 the building was turned into court rooms and other legal offices. Two large courtrooms were added and the perimeter buildings were remodelled and used as the District Court, the Patents, Coroners and Weights and Measures departments. Finally in 1979 when the new Court offices were built the building was closed and turned into a museum. By the time we finished walking round this building it was time for lunch then after that we continued walking through the gardens and towards Government House. Unfortunately one of the down sides of coming over Christmas / New Year is that a lot of the buildings are closed so we couldn’t do the tour of Government House as we had hoped so from there we walked round to the front to the Sydney Opera House. It is quite difficult to get round as they are setting everything up for New Years Eve but we managed to get inside to collect our tickets for tonight’s show then we had a walk around the front and decided to head back to the apartment for a bit of a rest before going out again this evening. For Christmas Mum and Dad brought us tickets for the Illusionist which is a collection of eight magicians doing different things such as escapology, slight of hand and mind reading. All of them were very good but Chris Cox was the mind reader and selected someone from the audience which turned out to be Chris. The whole audience was asked to think of a word and while we we doing that a stuffed toy snake was thrown around the auditorium and it landed on Chris. He was miked up and taken up on stage where he was asked to write down his word and answer the other questions on the paper then put the paper in his pocket so that no-one else could see the answers. There were two ‘cubicals’ on stage both with a selection of different coloured t-shirts, hats and a few other bits hanging up. Chris was asked to check that there weren’t any spy holes or anything then he went into one cubical and the curtain was drawn across and he was asked to reject one of the t-shirts, Chris Cox then selected one and asked Chris to throw his reject over the top of the cubical which he did and it was the same coloured one. He then recounted details about Chris which I later found out were related to the questions he had answered. Finally having selected a t-shirt, hat and an item it was time for the big reveal and they were wearing the same thing. The final part of the trick was that the word Chris had been thinking of was in the back of the shirt that the other Chris was wearing! So at least one thing is clear that the person up on stage doesn’t talk to the magician before hand! The whole show went on like this with ever more baffling tricks then all too soon it was all over and we walked back to the ferry and came back to the apartment still trying to work out how each of the tricks were done, especially the one where the guy was sawn in half! A great show and a fantastic evening.
