Sydney 2023

Sydney is beautiful in rain or sunshine and our trip in March gave us the opportunity to enjoy both. We walked around Darling Harbour till night fell.

We also went to see The Rocks markets (where there are some interesting stalls sending hand-made leather wallets, different style clothes, jewelery, cosmetics etc.).

The cafe at the Museum of Contemporary Art offers such beautiful views towards the famous Opera house that we had to go and have a cup of tea. WHil there we got to see a ferry turning at Circular Quay.

They had some interesting exhibitions on with some very nice and thought-provoking pieces displayed – one done by a Tiwi islander with various shades of ochre spread in fine lines with a brush, another one by an Aboriginal painter with white crosses on black background on dried bark (based on their stories); another one called Shellworked slippers, done by Esme Timbery, an Aboriginal lady who lives around Sydney with shells placed in/on small slippers for kids of the stolen generation.

Another interesting piece done with a pendulum that spread salt on a dark background. Another one was Maria Fernanda Cardosos’ Corn Cob Coil, meant to highlight the importance of corn in people’s lives (and we did wonder if this display was the predecesor to toilet paper rolls considering that in the past corn cobs served this purpose as well).

Another interesting one was Louisa Bufardeci ‘s Plan 2003 / 2009, where the map of the world is presented as an architectural plan, each nation being represented as a room in a house, its size proportional to its number of inhabitants.

Next stop was the Justice and Police museum where we learned some interesting facts about accident stats or when speed cameras came into use.

We went for a walk at South Head, past the nudist beach, and relaxed watching the pace and tension of a sailing race

before heading to Centennial Park for a walk around the pond and the rose gardens.

Somewhere on the way to South Head we got some beautiful views of Sydney Bridge and the Opera… but can’t remember the name of of park

The Coal Loader is a park in North Sydney where they used to have a coal station / loader for ships using steam produced by burning coal to heat the water. It is a nice walk and we also got to see MV Cape Don, a former lighthouse tender, now a museum and training ship.