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SYDNEY AUSTRALIA'S FIRST CITY Captain Cook noted the entrance to Sydney Harbour as he navigated the east coast of Australia in 1770. He called it Port Jackson in honour of the then Secretary of the British Admiralty, Sir George Jackson. The British Government subsequently decided to set up a penal colony in 'New Holland', as the continent was known, both as an outlet for Britain's convict population ans as a permanent British presence in the South Pacific. Command of the expedition to start the colony was entrusted to Captain Arthur Phillip. Having looked at Botany Bay and decided it was unsuitable, Phillip moved north to Port Jackson. The narrow bay in which he anchored he dubbed Sydney Cove, and on its shores on January 26, 1788 he raised the flag and proclaimed the settlement that was to become Sydney. Thus for many years the gateway to Australia was Philip's Sydney Cove, some 11 kilometres from the towering bluffs that flank the harbour mouth - North Head and South Head. Both headlands, particularly South Head, command a breath-taking view back along the harbour to the city - like a zoom lens automatically drawing the focus to the city skyline, the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Sydney Tower. The Bridge, Opera House and Sydney Tower may be Sydney's landmarks, but the harbour is its pride and joy. Its innumerable arms extend in all directions, the product of a drowned valley system that finds bottom in the depths of the Pacific. Sydney's city 'proper' is bounded by the harbour north and west and cut off to the east by the green parklands of the Botanical Gardens and the Domain. Within those boundaries Sydney is an exciting and rewarding city to walk around - elegant, raucous, handsome, solemn, Georgian, Edwardian, Victorian and dazzlingly contemporary. Where the First Fleet dropped anchor, the shoreline has become a neat U-shaped waterway with major wharves on either arm and the harbour ferry terminals at its base. Circular Quay was built in the nineteenth-century to handle overseas shipping and, in the final great era of sail, the days of the superb clipper ships, Sydney Cove was a forest of majestic masts, with clippers tied up several abreast. Across the water form the Quay, the Harbour Bridge disgorges its congested traffic into Sydney's 'mini-twin', North Sydney, a high-density, high-rise satellite that took shape in the 1960's when space and traffic were becoming intolerably congested in the city. Under the shadow of the bridge to the west is Pier One. Originally the disembarkation point for new immigrants, the Pier has been re-modelled to preserve its original atmosphere. It has many shops, cafes (especially good for seafood) and a tavern decorated in old Sydney style. Nearby Pier 4 has been converted to house the Sydney Theatre Company. The Wharf Theatre, the venue for the Company's experimental and small productions, and the Wharf restaurant have one of Sydney's best night-time views. Standing sentinel at the eastern end of Sydney Cove, almost flowing out of the water, as its designer Joern Utzon intended it to be, like sails scudding up from the waves, is the Sydney Opera House. Excellent tours of the Opera House are available seven days a week; the length of the tour depends on how many rehearsals are taking place. By day, conventional, commercial Sydney reasserts itself. The eastern shore of the Quay is dominated by the Sydney Cove Passenger Terminal. Sydney's largest passenger berth with anchorage deep enough for ships of 40,000 tonnes. Its sandstone neighbour is the NSW Maritime Services Board. Commercial blocks face them on the opposite side and linking the two is the span of the Cahill Expressway, enabling the traffic to and from the Harbour Bridge to bypass the city. Below the overhead roadway is the elevated section of Sydney's underground railway, which breaks into daylight at Circular Quay railway station, and, below that again, Circular Quay Plaza, one of the city's major bus terminals. In line with Sydney's boundaries the city's bus services terminate at three main points: Circular Quay in the north, Wynyard Square in the west, and, in the south, Central Railway Station, the outlet for all country and understate train services. The Sydney Explorer tourist bus travels around the city at frequent intervals. Your ticket allows you to alight from and rejoin the bus at will. 'Down-town' has that sightly seedy, railway air about it, while the Quay remains typically 'waterfront'. One old-style Sydney pub on one side of the Circular Quay Plaza is worth a visit, particularly since it is an early-opener - the Ship Inn. It opens at 6:30am, officially to cater for night shift-workers, although anyone may patronise it. Aloof from these, and from their highrise neighbours, in the centre of the Plazathe old Customs House continues to preside over the scene, a monument in sandstone to nineteenth-century Sydney. Its time-honoured clock is surrounded by tridents and dolphins. The coat of arms above the entrance is one of the best stone carvings in Australia. Immediately behind Circular Quay Plaza, a series of maritime-flavoured laneways and narrow streets culminates in Macquarie Place and its sheltering canopies of giant Moreton Bay fig trees. An anchor and a cannon from Phillip's flag-ship HMS Sirius are preserved in the park, which they share with gas lamps, an 1857 drinking fountain, an ornate Victorian 'gents' (classified by the National Trust) and a weathered obelisk, from which distances to all points in the colony used to be measured. In the surrounding laneways look for Len Evans' restaurant (gourmet cuisine) in Bulletin Place; The Basement, a fashionable jazz restaurant, in Reiby Place; and in nearby Young Street one of the world's smallest churches, the tiny St Vincent de Paul Chapel at 5 Young Street; run by the Marist Fathers. Government House is an imposing neo-Gothic sandstone mansion of the 1840's, not open to the public, but easily admired from the adjacent Botanic Gardens. Between the entrances to both, the fortress-like lines of the NSW Conservatorium of Music successfully conceal the building's origin as stables, designed in 1816 by the renowned convict architect Francis Greenway, and completed in 1821 as part of an earlier Government House on the site. The Botanic Gardens, more than 2hectares of formal landscaping, were originally dedicated in 1816. Today they are a perennial landscape of colour as more than 4,000 native and exotic plants bloom throughout the year. In one small corner there is a stone wall, nearly 200 years old, marking the original plot of the colony's first vegetable garden, planted at the direction of Governor Phillip. The other side of the roadway, the western side of Macquarie Street, is typical of Sydney high-rise with one of the most striking buildings, the State Government Offices block, standing diagonally opposite the State Library of New South Wales. The Library overlooks the Botanic Gardens. In the Library's Mitchell and Dixson wings is one of the world's great repositories of national archives and memorabilia, a priceless collection of Australiana and historical records. Adjacent to the Library are two of Sydney's oldest buildings, the New South Wales Parliament and the old Colonial Mint building (now a museum) - both of them the wings of the first colonial hospital. Between them now in all its dour Victorian splendour is the present Sydney Hospital, a city institution which opened in 1879. The original colonial hospital, of which Parliament House and the former Mint were part, was known as the Rum Hospital. When coins were short in the colony, run was the currency and the builders were paid in casks of the spirit. Behind the buildings, the Domain - a Sunday afternoon forum for 'soap-box' orators - separates the rear of Macquarie Street form the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Macquarie Street finally leads into Queens Square, arguably one of Sydney's most elegant precincts. The square is encircled by Hyde Park, the towering Law Courts building and Francis Greenway's pre-1820 masterpieces, St James's Church and Hyde Park Barracks (now a museum). Flowing harmoniously on from the old barracks are two great neo-Gothic triumphs of the nineteenth-century - the Registrar-General's building and St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral. Hyde Park is now divided into two sections by the broad avenue of Park Street, which connects the city with Kings Cross. One half is dominated by the Archibald Fountain - a legacy to the city from the first publisher of the Bulletin - and the other by a Pool of Remembrance and the Anzac War Memorial. On the eastern boundary of the park, on College Street, stand the Australian Museum; one of Sydney's oldest colleges, Sydney Grammar School; and two high-rise neighbours, the Returned Servicemen's League headquarters and a major NSW Police Department block. On the city side of Hyde Park runs Elizabeth Street. No longer the major city artery it once was, these days it serves as a vital, almost continuous, bus feeder route, particularly where the two underground railway stations, St James and Museum, disgorge. It is still, however, noteworthy for the headquarters of one of Australia's great retailing empires, David Jones; another of Sydney's historic buildings, the Great Synagogue; and the administrative headquarters of the ABC, Broadcast House. David Jones, on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Market Street, is a Sydney landmark. I'll see you on DJ's corner' was, and still is, a regular Sydney rendezvous. From here, Elizabeth Street continues north to the spacious semi-circle of Chifley Square, named in honour of a former Prime Minister, J. B. Chifley. Looking onto the square are the Goodsell Building, one of the headquarters of the NSW Public Service; one of Sydney's top hotels, the Sheraton Wentworth; one of the major federal public service building in Sydney, the Commonwealth Centre, a 'regular tourist call' because it houses Commonwealth Health and Immigration departments; and the Chifley Square Building (the old Quantas House), which has retained its airline connections - Australian Airlines now uses the offices previously occupied by Australia's international airline, Quantas. In a wedge-shaped sector of blocks made by Bent, Bridge, Young, Phillip and Loftus Streets stand the office buildings of colonial New South Wales, elaborate and ornate in Sydney's superb Hawkesbury sandstone, on which the city is built. Mostly late-Victorian, the buildings still serve their original purposes for the state departments of Education, Agriculture, and so on. All are massively solid and set with either statues, gargoyles, handsomely-worked stone, or all three. Within them, cedar-lined offices open onto marbled corridors, wrought-iron balustrades and ceilings so high and arched as to be almost vault-like. Those ministerial offices still within them are treasure-troves of priceless colonial artifacts and design, from grandfather clocks to richly-panelled fireplaces. The disordered pattern of the surrounding streets is a product of the complete lack of planning that occurred once Governor Phillip was recalled from Sydney. Bullock-tracks and wandering cow-paths determined the town-plan until Governor Macquarie attempted to impose order some 20 years later. Today, the raffish result contributes to Sydney's charm - as it also ensures the narrowness and congestion of the city streets. Castlereagh Street, parallel to Elizabeth Street, also loses itself in the tangle of colonial office blocks above the Quay. North of Martin Place, it is part of Sydney's merchant belt. It hosts banks, insurance company offices, the Taxation Department, shipping companies and airline offices. South of Martin Place the character of the area changes. The MLC Centre dominates almost a whole block, and contains suites of luxurious offices above, and, at ground level, some exclusive and very expensive shops. These comprise mostly jewellers and fashionable boutiques. The complex also houses a convenient fast-food area, Australia Tavern, a cinema (the Dendy) and, for the theatre-goer, Sydney's prestigious Theatre Royal. There are more cinemas nearby and a less expensive shopping complex - Centrepoint, where you can visit Sydney Tower. It has two observation decks, plus high-powered binoculars and a video television camera so you can see Sydney's landmarks, as well as two revolving restaurants. At 270 metres, the tower summit offers spectacular views. |
