Sydney, AU I (8/19/2025)

Sunday, August 17, 2025

After lunch we began our journey to Australia. PHL/Philadelphia to MSP/Minneapolis, MSP to LAX/Los Angeles, and LAX to SYD/Sydney, Australia. Because we crossed the International Dateline, we essentially skipped August 18th, arriving in Sydney on...

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

Our Australian Electronic Travel Authority (instead of a visa) is mysteriously encoded in our passports.

Colin picked us up at the airport and we were able to freshen up before heading out with Sharon to see some sights, despite the rain.

Sydney has an extensive ferry system; this is how we
traveled to Sydney's Circular Quay

The sky is clear in Sydney! Sydney is the capital of the Australian state of New South Wales.

West of Circular Quay is the Museum of Contemporary Art
(est 1991, building 1939-1952 for the Maritime Services Board
/MSB, in Stripped Classical style with Art Deco ornamentation)

Circular Quay is the location of the Ferry Terminal
with multiple wharves

The iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge (1923-1932)
is a steel through arch bridge, nicknamed the Coathanger

Zooming in, you can see people doing the BridgeClimb
(est 1998) on the world's tallest arch bridge (134 m/440')

Now we see the iconic Sydney Opera House (1959-1973,
by Jørn Utzon in Modern Expressionist style), a performance
arts centre with seven venues, covered with 1,056,006 Swedish
tiles in two colours: glossy white and matte cream

Access to the Sydney Opera House is limited to timed tours;
after Utzon resigned in 1966, Peter Hall was responsible
for the interior design, using Australian white birch
and brush box glulam/laminated timber as chosen by Utzon

A very helpful woman at the information desk
left her post to take us past a barrier rope
up to the Southern Foyer...

...thus we were able to see the portrait (1976,
by Judy Cassab) of Dame Joan Sutherland,
the Australian coloratura soprano after
whom the opera theatre is named 

In the Western Foyer we found the tapestry Les Dés Sont Jetés/
The Dice Are Cast (1959, by Le Corbusier), which was
commissioned by Jørn Utzon for the Sydney Opera House

The north/waterside of the Sydney Opera House (KSS)

Sydney Opera House from its southeast corner

Royal Botanic Garden (est 1816 as the
colony's vegetable garden, making it the
oldest botanic garden in Australia) with a
tall Araucaria heterophylla/Norfolk Pine

We kept looking back at the Sydney Opera House

Royal Botanic Garden Australian Rockery

Brachychiton rupestris/
Queensland Bottle Tree (KSS)

A last look back at the Sydney Opera House
and the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Mrs Macquarie's Chair (1810, carved by
convicts) for the wife of Major-General Lachlan
Macquarie, Governor of New South Wales
(thanks to Colin for the photo)

Cacatua galerita/Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (KSS)

Royal Botanic Garden main entrance

Art Gallery of New South Wales (est 1874, building
1895-1899, by Walter Vernon in Classical style)

Woman in bath (1963, reworked 1964, by Brett Whiteley,
an Australian artist with an obsession with ultramarine blue)

Bailed up (1895, by Tom Roberts) is a posed re-
creation of a stagecoach robbery (KSS)

Sofala (1947, by Russell Drysdale) depicts Australia's
oldest surviving gold-rush town

Escaped convict (1962, by Sidney Nolan,
a leading Australian artist of 20C)

Birrkulda ceremony (c1960, by Tom Djäwa
of the Gupapuyngu Daygurrgurr people);
with respect we acknowledge this painting
is a work by, includes names of and
references to Aboriginal deceased people

Often throughout Australia, we were discouraged or restricted from photographing sacred sites and deceased individuals due to cultural beliefs about respecting spirits.

Map of the massacre of blacks on the Macleay Valley
(1991, by Robert Campbell Jr, Ngaku)

Bush at Evening (1947, by Grace Cossington
Smith, an Australian artist)

Five bells (1963, by John Olsen)

Apocalyptic horse (1956, by Albert Tucker,
an Australian modernist artist)

Portrait in the mirror (1948, by Margaret Olley)

Suspended stone circle 2 (1974-1977 1988, by Ken Unsworth)

Mitchell Library (1905-1910, by Walter Vernon
in Classical style) is part of the State Library of
New South Wales

Mitchell Library Reading Room

Mitchell Library vestibule floor with depictions of the
journeys of explorer Abel Tasman (KSS)

Mitchell Library Shakespeare Room
in Tudor style

Mitchell Library Objects Gallery included
the Commemorative Plaque of
Sir Joseph Carruthers

Outside the Mitchell Library is a statue
(1925, by William R Colton) of Matthew Flinders,
a Captain in the Royal Navy who charted much
of the Australian coast and discovered that Van
Diemens Land/Tasmania was actually an island

The grandson of Flinders made an offer to all the states of Australia: the first state to erect a statue in honor of Matthew Flinders would receive all of his papers.

A statue (1996, by John Cornwell) of
Trim, the cat who circumnavigated
Australia with Matthew Flinders, the
first European to do so

Next: Sydney, AU II.