Well, you know the story. We are up at 4:30 am. We try to go back to sleep, but it just doesn’t work. So, we get up, update our phones, read the news, emails, drink lots of coffee (yay, kettle and instant – love that stuff – seriously). And finally waste enough time to go down to the business center in the hotel to print out our new boarding passes and luggage tags (we’ve done the upgrade again on the ship – this time to a 2 bedroom suite – should be interesting).
We eat our little breakfast – which is unusual for us – but we’ve been up forever, and we’re noshy, so Ed has toast with butter and I have the little fruit salad cup. That will hold us over until lunch. Our plans today are to visit the Australian Museum, the first museum in all of Australia, and then head up to the Hyde Parks Barracks Museum which chronicles the building’s history, from housing convicts to women seeking asylum to law and court offices. It is supposed to be a great perspective on the history of Sydney.
The Australian Museum doesn’t open until 9:30, but we head out early to just wander through the park. It’s a nice day, some threatening clouds around, but at least they are keeping the heat at bay. The park is a lovely space, lots of trees, fountains and green. We head to the Anzac Memorial building, which isn’t open yet, but we’re hoping it will be at 9:00. In the meantime we enjoy the outside architecture and the birds congregating around the water pool outside the memorial.
The doors to the memorial open at precisely 9:00 and we wander in to the beautiful Art Deco building. It’s a beautiful memorial to all those who have served their country. The main area is called The Hall of Memory. It is circular with a domed ceiling that has gold stars strewn all through it (which represent the Stars of Memory) and a “well of contemplation” in the middle – which has a beautiful circular balustrade and looks down upon a wonderful bronze statue called “Sacrifice.” Truly a significant monument for the people of Australia.
That didn’t take as long as we’d have liked, but, well, we’re speed tourists, we know it. We’re now off to the Australian museum, but after meandering slowly through the park we’re still 20 minutes early. Sigh. So, we sit on a bench at the end of the park and just people watch. Which is only so interesting, but it’s all we’ve got. As we are sitting it starts to sort of sprinkle, so we cross the street and head up to the museum entrance and get in line with all the parents and their very young children. We’re the only adults without kids! Well, it’s probably because they have a big spider exhibition going on – extra cost, we’re not doing it, I might as well be Ron Weasley, I HATE spiders. But at any rate, we pay our admission (with a 20% off coupon I found) and wander into the museum.
It’s actually a cool place – kids notwithstanding. The exhibits range from stuffed wild animals – extinct and current…
to dinosaurs, fossils, birds and insects, aboriginal history and culture and surrounding island culture.
There are some great videos, including one that describes the Crocodile Sorcerer, who can charm a crocodile and make it do what he wants…
and the Crocodile Spirit Man who is a vengeful ghost of someone killed by a crocodile.
Creepy!
The museum is good for an hour or two, then we head out toward the Barracks Museum, stopping at St. Mary’s Cathedral on the way.
The Barracks Museum is a short walk away, and we get there a little after 11:00. We’re getting hungry, but there doesn’t seem to be any place around the museum. We’re loath to go wandering around the city streets trying to find food, so we sit outside the museum on a garden wall for a bit to strategize our options. As luck would have it, we happen to turn around and find The Bakehouse – a restaurant in the courtyard of the museum that is open and serving breakfast and lunch. Stupendous.
We end up having one of the best – and most economical – lunches we’ve had in this country. We share a pasture fed beef burger with bacon and cole slaw and a Flash Pastry with Free range pork and fennel sausage (flash pasty being puff pastry wrapped around the sausage). Totally yum! And totally reasonable!
Done with lunch, we head into the Barracks Museum, which turns out to be one of the better museums we have ever visited. The story of the building itself is captivating – but the way they have displayed the artifacts and how they weave the story is just too creative and clever. Like the representation of the collapsed staircase up to the superintendent’s office: two steel rails that trace the staircase up 2 levels, like a shadow. The whole area is open, you can see up to the attic, and the layers of paint that have been stripped away so you can see all the different “layers” of decoration for each different use of the building. They’ve done the “layers” all over the building – stripped away the old paint so you can see the original paint layers underneath.
We have free audio guides which are quite informative and lead us through the museum. We view the artifacts found when they decided to preserve the building – from the convict barracks, the women’s immigration period and the law and court office period. There is a panoramic painting of Sydney in the 1800’s depicting all the different people (convicts, aboriginals, British and settlers) living and working together. The convicts mostly had jobs and worked outside the Barracks, actually living in town in the beginning. There are interactive experiences – you can put on a convicts clothes (I think not!) – and lots of different tools and equipment that the convicts used for work.
There are rooms where the convicts slept – in hammocks – 30 to a room, 70 to a room. It must have been awful in there.
And then there is the women’s room. After the convicts’ period, the Barracks were converted into a home for single women and children who immigrated to Australia. Mostly to avoid the Irish famine, these women arrived with virtually nothing and were housed here until they found work and could afford to live on their own. The story is wonderful, but the way they have displayed the dorm was just incredible. Large wooden boxes, sort of trunks, placed all around the room with women’s names engraved on them. Inside the boxes were samples of women’s possessions, or an explanation and samples of how they were rationed food, how they were treated for different afflictions, etc. But the best were the cots – each had a name and history printed across the bottom, and one even had a hologram of the actual woman in the bed! Amazing.
Probably the most fascinating thing was the room filled with the archeological finds. When the building was finally determined to be historical and set to be preserved, researchers came in and started to document the history of the building. In doing so, they started to rehab the building, but found that many items had been lost inside the flooring as the building was improved and renovated -and to the rats! There were tons of rats in the building and they would steal things from the human residents and take them back to their nests. Layers of flooring were removed and an incredible amount of material was found between the floors that is now on display in one of the rooms. We were, well, floored. (sorry, couldn’t help myself.)
Outside the main building, we wander the courtyard, popping in and out of the courtrooms and different ancillary rooms in the out buildings. Ed takes on the robes and the gavel in Courtroom 24…
…before we finally take our leave and head back to the hotel.
On the way we pass signs for a protest scheduled in the park. My caption for these photos is: How to piss off the world in 14 short days…
We cool off and relax for a bit in the room, before heading downstairs to the restaurant next to the hotel: Mazzaro. It sounds Italian, but it is more Mediterranean and we get a 10% discount for being hotel guests. Works for us. It’s not crowded and the service is slow – which is what we want. We really don’t want to rush our dinner, as we usually do, and end up back in the room in 30 minutes staring at the walls. So, we order our drinks and enjoy them while we hang out people watching. I decide I only want a starter – it’s Zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta and haloumi cheese with sun dried tomato and macadamia nut pesto – how could I go wrong? But I do break down and order the smoked eggplant spread as well. Ed orders the lamb Kefte to start and the pesce and gamboretti fritte, but unfortunately they are out of the Kefte, so we just share the eggplant…..
…which is a really good decision! The eggplant is awesome, and rathe filling. And the main course portions are huge!
My zucchini flowers are incredible – and Ed’s fish and shrimp are succulent and juicy and totally filling. Great meal. And they give us little teeny brownie “dice” for a little dessert. Cute and good (and so good we chowed down and I didn’t get a picture).
We’re happy and sated and ready to head upstairs to hang out, watch Columbo and hit the sack for our early morning Hunter Valley tour call.
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