My hotel is the coolest hotel ever! It is a backpackers’
place called Space Q Capsule, where the dorms have space capsules instead of
bunk beds. Direct out of Star Wars, the capsules open with a swipe of the card,
and glow in the dark with a soft blue light. The capsule itself is maybe 10 ft
long, 5 ft wide, and 5 ft tall, so it is quite roomy and comfortable. The
command center allows you to plug your iPhone and listen to music, adjust the
air conditioning, and sweep close the door of the capsule. Everything is
space-age clean and comfortable (I am going to guess it is quite a new remodel,
or otherwise they do a great job at keeping it clean, functional, and space-age
modern!).
I was out in the street by 8 am, intent on visiting first
the fish market and then the Australian Maritime Museum. I had not problem
finding the right streets, but it was a good walk and I didn’t make it to the
fish market until 8:45 am. In very Aussie style the market was advertised as
the biggest in Asia, but no, it is OK, but nothing compared to the fish market
in Tokyo, or even the Pike Street Market in Seattle. Still, there were all
sorts of trucks loading fish for distribution in the city, and there was a nice
touristy area with huge displays of fish, crabs, lobsters, and shell fish, and
with nice eating areas. For me it was a bit early for fish, but there were some
hardy souls already having a sushi breakfast. DJ would have loved to see the
enormous blue crabs and king crabs!
Another brisk walk brought me to the maritime museum, which
in my mind I had made the unofficial high point of my visit to Sydney. I have a
thing about maritime museums, having visited very fine ones from Tierra del
Fuego to Norway. On approach I saw that they had the typical collection of
historical vessels, including a cutter and a “tall” ship with one of her masts
stepped down. It was a funny, fat vessel, and it was clearly being worked on.
As I mentioned the top of her foremast had been disassembled, and there were a
couple of sailors working on the rigging of her main mast and her mizzen mast.
On approaching her I was finally able to read her name: HMB Endeavour. What? It
could not possibly be the Endeavour, James Cook’s first command? It wasn’t and
it was. The original Endeavour was captured during the American war of
independence, and sunk off the coast of Rhode Island in 1778, but in 1990 the
Australian Maritime Museum undertook the construction of the replica that now
stood before me. The bark was a collier used to transport coal (hence her
stubby shape) prior to the time when the Royal Navy bought it to send it to the
South Pacific, under the command of Lieutenant James Cook, in 1769. How I would
have liked to go on board!
I stepped into the museum, as eager as a kid, and gladly
paid the AUS$ 32 entrance fee, only to find out that most of the museum was
free, and what I had just paid for was to visit the warships and submarine that
are part of the collection. Rats! The museum was pretty good, although not the
best I have seen, and I completely skipped the section on naval warfare, which
Australians seem to have such a liking for. I had a lot of sightseeing to
complete, so I decided to go take a last look to the Endeavour before moving
on. Surprise! The Endeavour was open to visitors, and my paid fee entitled me
to step aboard. Oh, it was such a thrill. Man, once on board and in a deck
covered with all sorts of rope, capstan, four gigantic anchors, and a rudder bar
that swept most of the after deck there hardly seem to be enough place for its
complement of 100 sailors, 12 marines, three officers, the four scientific
gentlemen, and its master and commander. Below deck was the living space of all
these people, mostly in a space that was at best 5 ft high; the only way to be
there for any length of time was to crouch, sit down, or lay down. The officers
fared a bit better (but not much), and the great cabin felt like the most
luxurious space ever. It turns out they had opened the bark to visitors because
on this particular day there were a bunch of school groups visiting the museum,
and of course they wanted for them to see the jewel of the collection. And then
I heard something that interested me greatly: HMB Endeavour sails for several
months of the year, to visit foreign ports or to accommodate for school visits
around Australia; needless to say I have signed up for the 2020 season,
volunteering (and paying for the privilege) to be part of the crew to sail her
from Sydney to Cairns in summer 2020! How cool would that be?
The last part of my hop-on hop-off tour visited the east
part of the city, which is mostly residential and absolutely beautiful. With
looks of the Pacific to the east, and of the many bays that form Sydney Harbor
to the west, this part of town is the place to live. The houses are grandiose and
sell for millions of dollars, and I can see that retiring here would be mighty
fine. One of the highlights of the eastern tour is Bondi Beach, which
apparently is world famous among surfers, and rubs elbows with famous beaches
such as Waikiki or Santa Cruz. It even has its own TV show, highlighting the
excellent work done by its beach rescue team. Unfortunately in winter it is
cold and windy, so besides us crazy tourists there were only a couple of even
crazier surfers (my guess is that they were foreigners that just had to check
surfing Bondi in their bucket lists).
I wrapped the afternoon by going to visit the Opera House,
although I was not able to get inside. There were an insane number of tourists,
with Chinese dominating the ranks, so it was hard not to be in someone else’s
shot, or to take a picture without having a tourist making rabbit ears with her
fingers at you. It is a beautiful structure with a myriad angles to it, and I
have no doubt it is one of the most photographed buildings on the planet.
I walked all the way back to my hotel, and almost there I
took a right when I should have taken a left, and found myself in the middle of
Chinatown. Good, I think I will have a dozen barbecued duck wings for dinner.
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