The Journey to Middle Earth - Part One

The difficulty in getting to Australia and New Zealand from Ottawa is the fact that these two countries are so far away. This makes for an extremely long flight. From Ottawa to Vancouver (5.5 hours), then from Vancouver to Sydney (15 hours non-stop), it is a travel marathon. If you have the financial wherewithal, or the airline points, it is definitely worth it to fly in business class. Being able to lie down flat on the long leg across the Pacific was a blessing. Of course, compared to the original Europeans who took months to go to Australia in the nineteenth century by sailing ship (most as convicts being ‘transported’, some dying on the way), the flight is a breeze, even if one were in economy class.

Australia is a country that has had its share of introduced species which have caused huge problems (almost everyone knows the story of the 26 original rabbits and what happened to them – 60 million today – hey, they are rabbits!) so it is the first country I have visited where the aircraft is sprayed after landing. Passengers must sit in their seats while the crew opens all the overhead compartments and sprays them with what smelled like an insecticide. This takes about 10 minutes and is, one hopes, completely harmless – at least to humans.

The sun was shining when we exited the airport terminal and it was already a warm day, even though it was 8:30 a.m. local time, when we grabbed a taxi and headed to our hotel at Circular Quay at the heart of Sydney Harbour and within five minutes walking distance of the original settlement, The Rocks. After arriving in our room, I checked the view out the window. The Sydney Opera House was right there in front of me. After seeing this famous icon so many times on TV and in pictures, I just had to get my camera out and take a photo, my first in Australia.

We got cleaned up and then sallied forth down Pitt Street for the two block walk to the Harbour. As it was the tail end of rush hour, scads of ferries were arriving and departing Circular Quay, and trains and buses were also arriving and departing this busy transportation hub. We walked along the east side of the harbour, stopping to take a few pictures of the Opera house on the opposite side. Then in front of us loomed the famous Sydney Bridge, called the Coat Hanger by the locals. Built in the early1930s, it is still the tallest steel arch bridge in the world, coming in at 134 metres from the top to the water.

Turning inland at the end of the Quay, we headed up into The Rocks neighbourhood. Old buildings, with titles inscribed on them such as ‘Sailors Home’ and ‘Seamans’ Rest’ and a couple of pubs which boast of being the oldest in Sydney (apparently 6 different pubs claim this honour) allude to the original character of this area of the City. The Rocks today is a compact warren of small streets and alleys, stairways and passageways with iconic names such as the Suez Canal (so named for what happens in a rainstorm) and the Nurse’s Walk. Replete with shops, boutiques, pubs (lots of them), restaurants, the oldest house in Sydney (Cadman’s Cottage) and the Sydney Visitor Centre, it is an interesting place to wander aimlessly around in and get a feel for what Sydney might have been like in its early days. Being jetlagged, that is just what we did. Wander aimlessly around. Eventually, we sat at a sidewalk table at a pub and watched people go by (and tried the local brew). We meandered back to the hotel and while Marie went for a nap, I walked up Pitt Street into the commercial centre of town. It was swarming with business people out for lunch (people tend to go to lunch from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.) and the sidewalks were teeming. People were hurrying to and from take-away (take-out) places, or sitting on benches, on small plots of grass, on the low walls around buildings and in the numerous squares to eat their take-away lunches. I was not at all hungry, so after roving for a few blocks, I returned to Circular Quay and sat on a bench and watched the afternoon rush hour of ferries engorge with people and sail away. Around 5:30 p.m., I went back to the hotel and Marie and I went out into The Rocks for dinner. Then, rapidly losing steam because of the time change, we went back to the hotel and crashed at 9 p.m. local time.

Day two was another sunny, warm day. Although autumn had set in, to us it still felt like summer. We wandered down to the Opera House early in the morning and walked around this huge, magnificent building with its white sails representing the scallop shells found here in middens left by the Eulora Aboriginal people. The Opera House sits on the western side of Circular Quay Harbour, on a man-made spit of land (a large wharf would be a better description) and it dominates one side of the Harbour while a cruise ship terminal and the Sydney Bridge dominates the east side of the Harbour.

Designed in the late 1950s by a Danish architect, Jørn Utson, it was not completed until 1973. Jørn never worked long on the construction phase, having had a fall out with the changing requirements of the City of Sydney and with the attempts to keep costs under control. Originally estimated to cost $7 million, the final project came in at $107 million. Nevertheless, it is a very beautiful building, much larger than I thought it would be. It has UNESCO heritage status and tours of the building can be had if one so desires (the price of the tours should get back the $100 million overrun after about 100 people visit!).

When we had finished gawking around the Opera House, we entered the Botanical Gardens and followed the sea wall around the bay. This reminded me of Stanley Park in Vancouver, albeit the trees and birds were different, with palms, bamboo, eucalyptus trees, cockatoos (beautiful white birds with the worst screeching call I have ever heard) and other ground birds with long hooked beaks roving around. We checked out Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair on the point, a bench carved out of the sandstone cliff in 1810 by convicts that was used by the Governor’s wife to watch for ships arriving from England (when I sat in the chair, I could not see any ships from England, but I could see some of the Australian Navy ships that now help keep the Limeys out (just kidding, Great Britain)). The convicts (primarily transported people - both men and women- from England who were sent to Australia for a crime as simple as stealing a loaf of bread) built much of Colonial Australia's infrastructure. After serving time (and presumably with good behaviour), most were set free and like the rabbits imported into Australia, proceeded to populate the countryside.

After visiting the Chair, we skirted the tour buses lined up on the road behind it and took the 'high road', a path towards the centre of the Gardens and stumbled upon the Flying Foxes, very large fruit bats, hanging in a grove of trees. They were not all asleep because we could hear them chittering amongst each other and some of them were actually flying around, perhaps looking for a better roost for the day. They leave the trees each night and set out to feed on fruit throughout the Greater Sydney area.

We left the Botanical Gardens close to Government House (a museum now since the government moved in 1927 to Canberra in a situation much like the choice of Ottawa as Canada's capital) and descended the stairs to Circular Quay. We jumped on a ferry boat (by a day pass for the ferries; it is much cheaper than several one way tickets and can be used on the trains and buses as well) and rode over to Darling Harbour, via Luna Park and a couple of other stops. There were a lot of kids (and parents and grandparents) getting off the ferry at Luna Park since it was Easter break for schools in Australia. Luna Park is a beautifully restored 1930s amusement venue, although I think that if I were still a kid, the entrance to it would scare the-you-know-what out of me! What a creepy introduction to a day of fun since you have to go in through the mouth of what looks like Humpty Dumpty trapped between two fence posts.

Once at Darling Harbour we turned inland and walked the four blocks or so to Chinatown and to Paddy’s Markets, a large building that contained stall after stall of inexpensive clothes, electronic products, leather, wigs and more wigs, household goods, did I mention wigs?, and tourist souvenirs. It is the best place to buy souvenirs and since we were tourists, we had to buy something. We exited with a boomerang and some shot glasses depicting Aboriginal art. I also bought a baseball cap with Australia written on it, which was a good thing because I soon lost my Ottawa Senators hat I was wearing. We had stopped for lunch in Chinatown and being a gentleman, I had removed my hat and set it beside me on the ground (we ate outside) to dine. When we left the table, I left my hat. I hope whoever found it at least becomes a Sens fan.

Then it was back to Darling Harbour and the ferry back to Circular Quay. Later that afternoon, we caught the ferry for the half hour ride to Manly and Manly Beach. (There are two ferries to Manly, a fast one that takes 15 minutes and one that takes 30 minutes. My advice is to take the slow boat to Manly and enjoy the sightseeing along the way). If you go on any ferry rides in Sydney, this is the ferry ride worth taking, not only because Manly is a pretty seaside town with beaches both on the harbour and on the ocean, but also for the ride itself. After arriving at the Manly wharf (it contains interesting shops, bakeries and restaurants), we ambled down the Corso, a pedestrian mall, to its end where it terminates at Manly Beach. We joined the locals (for some reason mostly comprised of several young mothers, some jogging, who were pushing their baby strollers). Of course, we ambled along the paved path that runs along the beach. We stopped for about twenty minutes and watched the late afternoon surfers ride on and ultimately crash into the fairly large surf rolling in from the South Pacific.


Returning back along the Corso to the Harbour Beach and the Manly Wharf, we spent some time window shopping and browsing in a couple of the stores. Kerri, our daughter, had asked us to pick up some clothes for her at the Billabong Stores and we found one on the Corso. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that the clothes are actually cheaper at Billabong stores in Canada. I guess it is cheaper to ship them to Canada than to Australia from China!

Our friends Daryl and Melanie Rock had suggested we get a take-out pizza from the ‘Wood and Stone’ pizza parlour on the corner of the Corso across from the ferry wharf and watch the sunset from the harbour beach. Because we were in Australia in the autumn, the sunset came a bit early for us to eat, so we bought a beer on the corner of the wharf and watched kids playing at the water’s edge as the sun went down over the harbour beach, then went for the pizza. (Daryl and Melanie, you are right – the Tandoori Chicken pizza was sublime).

The ferry ride back to Sydney was spectacular because of all the lights along the route and as we came into Circular Quay to see the Opera House lit up while the bow waves from the ferry splashed and hissed below us was truly magical.

We had booked a tour to go to the Blue Mountains the next day and at 7:45 a.m. our guide arrived in a minibus to get us. Only one other couple was on the tour with us so that ended up being lucky because Steve, our driver/guide, spent a lot of time talking to each of us and adjusting the tour depending upon what we said we wanted to see and do. On our way out of town, he showed us the Olympic Site, explained the history of Sydney and all of the suburbs we went through, and told us several anecdotes about Australia and the Sydney area. He had a great sense of humour and throughout the day we exchanged several gentle digs at our collective countries, politicians, sports, and accents. Steve works for Boutique Tours and I picked them based on the reviews on TripAdvisor. If you are in Sydney and want to take a tour to the Blue Mountains, you can’t go wrong with Boutique Tours (they also do wine tours to the Hunter Valley) and hopefully Steve will be your guide. He knows all the plants and stopped often to show us (and let us smell the leaves he crushed) what made them peculiar and what they were used for by Aborigines and colonists and naturists today.

The first place we stopped was at an Aboriginal cultural centre, called Muru Mittigar, which in the local Aborigine dialect means ‘Pathway to Friends’. Phillip met us and took us out to a field where we all had a go at throwing boomerangs. I remember when we had a boomerang fad in Canada (remember Skippy and the Flying Doctor on TV?), but unlike the boomerangs we imported at the time, Phillip's boomerangs actually did come back. I managed to land one of them at my feet (the rest went a bit further afield). After we all had a throw, we went into the Centre where Phillip and his mate (in Australia mate does not mean significant other) talked to us about Aboriginal history, showed us artefacts which included huge boomerangs, spears, baskets, and of course showed us how didgeridoos, the oldest wooden wind instruments in the world, are made. Philip’s mate was the expert and he played several of them for us. What an earthy and deep buzzing sound he made from what are essentially hollow branches. We had tea and Aboriginal ‘Damper’ bread (so named because it has no yeast and was cooked in damped camp fire coals by early colonials), wattle seed pikelets and native jams from bush fruits before we left the Centre and headed up into the Blue Mountains.

On the way, Steve explained how the Blue Mountains got their name. Eucalyptus trees release moisture mixed with resin from their leaves as the sun shines on them and this refracts the blue end of the spectrum, resulting in a blue haze in the air. He joked that Ozzies are not very original with naming features – they have the Blue Mountains, Snowy Mountains, Great Sand Desert, Great Rocky Desert, Great Western Highway, Great Southern Desert etc.

We soon were driving down a dirt track and stopped on the side of the road. Steve led us down a short path and suddenly we were standing on a rock cliff, two to three hundred metres above a valley below. He explained that we were on the King’s Tablelands, a feature that would become more apparent later on as we circled the top of the horseshoe shaped valley below. After we all took photos, we jumped back in the van and drove around to the other side of the horseshoe where we walked down another path to a lookout where we could see the flat top where we had stood twenty minutes before. We also faced the Three Sisters – rock formations that in Aboriginal lore were created when the witchdoctor Tyawan, trying to escape with his family from a mythical creature called the Bunyip, used his magic Kangaroo shin bone to turn his daughters into stone so that the creature could not eat them. He then turned himself into a Lyrebird further down the valley when trapped by the Bunyip and because birds cannot hold the shin bone, dropped it and hid in a cave. To this day, he continues to search for the shin bone to help him turn his daughters back into people.

We descended into the Megalong Valley and on the way down the very steep and winding road to the valley floor, we drove through a tropical microclimate replete with huge ferns that looked like they came right out of Jurassic Park. A couple of kilometres into the valley, we stopped at a Tea House for lunch. I had a homemade and very delicious chicken pie sitting outside in this tranquil setting beneath large trees listening to the birds singing all around us.

Back in the van, we headed up the cliff and started back towards Sydney, but Steve had one more place he wanted to show us. We went down into another valley and back into the National Park to a very peaceful open area in the bush where a few campers had pitched their tents. Here we looked for kangaroos as they are quite abundant in the area. But all we saw was ‘roo doo. And several more kookaburra birds in the trees all around us. It was now getting dark, so we piled back in the van and headed to Sydney. To keep us entertained, Steve put a DVD on the screen in the van that showed us many of Australia’s unique animals. We arrived back at the hotel about 7:30 p.m. and since we had been eating and snacking all day, decided to just grab some of the food and drinks offered in the lounge before calling it a night.

The next day dawned a bit cloudy and cooler. We decided to head up to the Paddington Markets but got our directions mixed up and actually ended up back by Chinatown again. After having a coffee to figure out our next plan of attack, we decided to head to the Sydney Aquarium since the skies were still threatening showers. The Aquarium is not large as aquariums go, but it did have quite a display of Australian Dugongs, which are related to Manatees. They are interesting looking animals, but how sailors in centuries past mistook them for mermaids, I will never know - maybe too much rum? The best part of the Aquarium was the two large tanks through which glass tunnels run which means you feel like you are actually under the water with the fish and other sea animals, plants and corals. I thought this really worked well in the tank where several different species of sharks and rays cruised about inches from us.

After touring the Aquarium, we stopped at a restaurant in Darling Harbour and had lunch. Afterwards we walked back towards Circular Quay, following the road along the harbour, past the cruise ship berth and then into The Rocks once more where we climbed about a million stairs to go up onto Observatory Hill where the views of the harbour, bridge and city are great. The old Observatory and weather station is at its top. While Marie rested and admired the view, I toured the exhibit inside which informed me that the temperature in Sydney once reached 45 C in January, that 300mm of rain once fell on the city in 24 hours (needless to say a boat was a handy thing to have), and that a hailstorm once caused 1 billion dollars in damage (the hailstones were larger than oranges and crashed through the tile roofs of houses, buildings and cars). But no worries, mate, most of the time the weather in Sydney is what Ozzies call ‘fine’.

We made our way down Observatory Hill to the end of George Street in The Rocks where the weekend market was underway. Over a hundred kiosks exhibited art, jewellery, old photographs, clothes, books, jams and other confections, wooden toys, aboriginal objects and a myriad of other crafts. Even if you don’t buy anything (we just picked up some fudge), checking out the stalls and wares is well worth an hour or two. If nothing else it indulges the shopping genes prominent in the fairer sex and works up a thirst in the other.

Our last full day in Sydney and the weather appeared to be ‘fine’ so we headed out to a store we saw in The Rocks called the Rocks Hatter where I picked up a Kangaroo Leather drover’s (Australian cowboy) hat as my souvenir (you will see me modelling it in the next parts of The Journey to Middle Earth). We bought another day pass on the transportation system and caught the train to Bondi Junction where we switched to a bus and went to Bondi Beach. It is easy to see why this beach is so famous. A perfect crescent of sand set between two headlands where the surf crashes unto the rocks in towering surges of white spray that contrasts with the deep turquoise of the ocean behind, it is quite a sight to behold from the walkway set above the beach. We strolled down the walkway, watching the surfers as they waited to catch the perfect wave for the ride into the beach. As we did, I noticed an ominous black cloud (more like a bank of clouds) approaching from the west and our back. Halfway down the beach, I suggested to Marie that finding a restaurant for lunch or coffee suddenly seemed like a good idea. Needless to say, we did not make it up the hill to the street. The rain hit us in a sheet of water, but luckily, we were 20 metres from a picnic shelter, where we and another 6 people converged and suddenly became best mates. We all watched the rain pour down and the surf crash onto the rocks while we chatted for about twenty minutes and then it was over and we all went our separate ways.

We finally got to the restaurants and ate at a table on the sidewalk behind a protective plastic sheet because of the wind that was still blowing pretty hard. After lunch, we caught the bus and did the reverse trip back to Circular Quay. We had decided to take another ride on the ferries if the weather was good, and since it was OK, we boarded the Rivercat (smaller catamaran) for the one hour ride to the suburb and former town of Parramatta. This was an interesting ride as the ferry was quite fast in the harbour, passing the Olympic Site and huge houses on the upper reaches of the Harbour before entering the Parramatta River itself. The river kept getting narrower and narrower and eventually, the ferry was making about 5 knots as we silently cruised up what to me resembled a jungle river as the trees and vegetation actually grew right in the water at the river’s banks. We got to Parramatta and as we did, it started to rain, so we decided to stay on the ferry as it turned in a basin before a small weir and immediately started the return trip. As we headed back down river and just as before we entered the main part of the harbour, the clouds broke up, rainbows appeared and the golden honey coloured rays of the sun shone through in a late afternoon light show that made for a very pleasant welcome back to the City.

What better way to say goodbye to Sydney and our introduction to Australia than sailing on the water towards a glorious sunset. We will be back.