Where Have All The Restaurants Gone!

Tuesday 28 November

We were woken this morning by the “garbage runners” – or dustmen to us Brits – emptying bins of glass bottles noisily into their cart (backpackers drink a lot of bottled beer). But at least it was 07.00 and not the ringing alarm. Breakfast at the Victoria Hotel is ‘continental’ style and the croissants always warm, but it was hard for Colin to have his usual five or more courses – he did try with a double helping of cereal. We chatted to a couple from Bristol, who had been to Port Stephens to their time share – Bob and Gwen country – and now were making their way to Adelaide and Melbourne before going home.

Our first task this morning was to find Central Station and book our train ticket to Melbourne for Thursday. We looked at the small map given to us by John, and decided to walk – it didn’t look far on paper. The sun was shining and it was warm again, and as we strolled through Sydney’s leafy suburbs we would see a bit of the city. It took us about half an hour. We passed the celebrated David Brown’s store on Elizabeth Street with its windows decorated for Christmas (not a touch on Selfridges), Hyde Park , with its fountains and statues to famous pioneers, the Anglican cathedral of St Mary’s, partly covered in scaffolding and netting as the brick work is cleaned (this building was started in 1868 to replace the previous wooden structure, but was never completed, so that the Church did not pay tax on it – for the centennial celebrations in 1988, the spires were added to the southern towers), and the National Library with a statue of Matthew Flinders welcoming you (the first man to circumnavigate the continent) with his cat Trim, who had accompanied him on his travels, on the windowsill behind. Central Station has the usual huge Victorian façade we associate with terminal stations at home, but once inside it was easy to find the Countrylink booking desk. We had intended to book first class as the journey will take about twelve hours (Bangkok to London by air), but the booking clerk advised us that the only difference in the seat was a few extra inches leg room, which he did not think was worth the extra A$50 a seat. So we have two seats in pleb class! And hopefully still enough leg room.

It was now time to explore Sydney a little more, and where better to start than the bridge and the Opera House. We caught a city line train to Circular Quay – all suburban trains in Sydney are double decker, so it was a novelty to sit upstairs. Downstairs you head is just above the platform. These trains would help solve the commuter problems in London – just a shame the bridges and tunnels are all too low. As we exited the station, the famous Sydney bridge was right in front of us. Of course, we drove over the bridge yesterday, and had seen it from the air when we landed at Sydney ages ago, but it was still spectaclar, gleaming in the sun. It was designed by the same man who designed the bridge acrosss the Tyne at Newcastle, and is really just a larger version. I took lots of piccys from all angles.

We moved on along the Quay to the Opera House, sitting out on a spur into the river, known as Bennelong Point. There was originally a fort on this peninsula, but, when in the late1940s Eugene Goosen, the then principal conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, began his campaign for a permanent venue suitable for opera, ballet and concerts, this site was chosen. It is surrounded on three sides by the harbour and on the fourth by the Royal Botanical Gardens. In January 1956 an international competition was announced to design the National Opera House – still a controversial decision as there was no national opera or ballet companies at the time. In January 1957 the judges announced Jorn Utzon, a Danish architect, was the winner. Almost all the other entries had chosen a square design, but Utzon believed that a “sculpture” building would be best – he saw it as a focal point, to be viewed from all angles, and the roof structure would therefore be of major importance. His original design proved to be impossible to build!, and it took Utzon several years to find the solution to building the roof. He turned to a sphere, and designed the curved roof ribs supporting the roof, to be pre-fabricated in a uniform shape that could all be cut a single sphere. The roof tiles were imported from Sweden and cover an area of over four acres, set in a pattern using glossy white and matt buff tiles. After nine years working with Ove Arup from London the outer shell was complete, but there were arguments over the interior acoustics, and costs were escalating. There was a change of Government, who immediately fell out with Utzon and he resigned. Another firm of architects were appointed and completed the interior, moving the ballet and opera sections to a separate hall from the concerts. The building finally opened in September 1973. Opera Australia performs for eight months of the year here, on a repertory system – four operas in a season, often two on one day (matinee and evening performances) resulting in major organization for scenery changes, props, costumes, etc. Ballet Australia perform in eight week slots, and the venue is now used for many other major events and celebrations, ie the bi-centenary, the Millennium, or the Olympics. Unfortunately Jorn Utzon has never returned to Australia to see the completion of his ‘dream’ – he is now 88 – but in 1999 he agreed to produce a Statement of Design Principles, to guide any future changes to the building. In 2003, with Jorn Utzon’s son, also an architect, work started to utilize the space under the concert hall, which had originally been designed for scenery storage, green rooms, and backstage offices, but with the removal of opera and ballet to a different hall, had not been used. This area was turned into three smaller theatres for drama – the Playhouse – a Studio for emerging artistes and an Exhibition Hall. There are plans to further extend the facilities in the building in the near future.

We explored the outside looking at the segment shapes of the five sections, and the surrounding sights – the high rise city buildings, the botanical gardens, and the busy waterway. There is a never ending flotilla of boats - yachts, ferries, catarmarans, speedboats – in and out of the harbour. There was plenty to see. It was nearly midday by the time we entered the building, and the next tour of the Opera House, lasting an hour, started in just a few minutes, so we bought our ticket and waited for our guide, Linda, who proved to be an enthusiastic leader and informant. She locked and unlocked doors as we went up and down stairs in the separate buildings. We were lucky enough to creep into the concert hall while a rehearsal of a Bartok Symphony was taking place – the acoustics sounded great. We also stood in spot where Leighton Hewitt got married last year – a great mauve carpeted foyer to the stall of the concert hall, with a 30ft wide staircase leading down. I had tried to get tickets for the concert here earlier on the internet, but it was sold out – we found out Bryn Terfyl, the Welsh baritone was singing, and in fact tickets had been sold out for months.

By the time we had finished the tour, we were feeling peckish, so meandered around the Quayside restaurants trying to decide what to eat – sandwiches were never mentioned on any of the menus – it was all ‘posh nosh’ meals. We finally chose the Oyster Cove, a riverside café offering a choice of “Sydney rock” or “Pacific” oysters and interesting salads. We chose to taste both types of oyster – “naturelle” with the usual red wine vinegar dressing with shallot (not seafood sauce! – just how heathen can you get?). The Pacific oysters were large, meaty chunks of mollusc, but not so full of flavour as their smaller cousins, the Sydney rocks. These looked quite small and round beside the larger oval shells but the flavour was much more intense. But they were both extremely yummy. We followed these with an asparagus and beetroot salad with walnuts, parmesan and dressing and a large bowl of chips!, All washed down with rosé wine. We sat and watched the ferries in and out of the terminal, traveling to all destinations in the surrounding coves – many people use ferries as public transport for getting into the centre from the outlying districts, as well, of course, as tourists, sightseeing.

The weather was by this time very warm – up in the 30’s again (the temperature from day to day, even hour to hour, can change in Sydney by as much as ten degrees C or more, so whereas yesterday was only in the mid twenties, today was much, much hotter) so we decided not to walk the couple of miles there and back across the bridge. I would really love to have walked over the top (they strap you on), but Colin doesn’t like heights (the top of the bridge is 134 metres above the river) and it takes a couple of hours – and we had watched a couple of groups descending the steep curve while we ate.. We found out later that it cost A$170, about 75 GBP each. Instead we made for the monorail – another train journey for me. We had to walk partway along George Street, the main thoroughfare through Sydney from east to west, the nearest monorail station being “Central” – a completely different station to the one we visited this morning. We bought tickets for the complete circular ride – A$4.50 each – for a journey which lasted about 20 mintues. It ran above the streets around Darling Harbour, the aquarium and maritime museum, and back into the shopping area – it seemed very short and an almost superfluous route. At one point the track passes the Novatel Hotel, Darling Harbour, and it goes so close to the windows, you felt that any one staying on that floor, could just reach out of their window and touch the train! As the trains run every few minutes from 07.00 to 22.00, every day, these would be really noisy rooms.

We got off a stop early at Galleries Victoria, to walk back to the hotel, through the main shopping streets and arcades, looking at the decorations along the way. There did not seem to be lots of department stores, and designer shops were confined to a couple of streets. Mostly the shops were small boutique-y style selling lots of clothes and souvenirs, not terribly well presented, with burger bars on every corner.

We arrived back at the hotel quite foot-weary, and Colin sat on the bed and fell asleep almost immediately – bad move – it was a real struggle when he woke an hour later. I tried, not very successfully, to catch up on the blogs.

Time for dinner. We decided tonight was the night to hit the town, so we caught a train from Kings Cross station, at the top of the road (not a bit like Kings Cross at home – just a stop on the East coast underground line), back to Central Station. From there we walked, and walked, and walked, looking for a suitable restaurant – we passed through China town (not feeling like Chinese food tonight), and walked the whole length of George Street! – and still did not find what we were looking for. As we neared the harbour again, there were a few bars, and we had seen plenty of fast food places, but no bistros or Italian, French or, in fact, Australian food eateries. We found ourselves back at Circular Quay, and still no food! It was 21.00 by this time, and we needed to eat soon, as we had an early start again tomorrow. We looked at the other cafes around the harbour and decided Oyster Cove offered some of nicest food, so we retraced our steps. We were offered a table right by the river, overlooking Sydney harbour and the Opera House, now all lit up in twinkling coloured lights reflecting on the water – it was very romantic. We resisted a second helping of oysters and went for the more conventional meals of chicken and lamb (not beef for me). The food was imaginatively presented with unusual vegetables and tasted wonderful. We couldn’t face another long walk – it was about equidistant to walk to the hotel or Central Station (we had bought return tickets), so we decided on the train, all the way from Circular Qay.

We have been quite surprised about Sydney – although the city is a large sprawling metropolis, and it has quite a large shopping area, the centre seemed devoid of atmosphere – even though its decorated for Christmas. We later learned that we should have gone to Darling Harbour or Kings Wharf where there are some expensive fish restaurants, or Cockle Wharf for fish and chips. Most of the eateries are around the suburbs, away from the actual city centre, catering for the thousands of backpackers that are traveling here. Never mind there is always next time. We have another full day touring tomorrow, so hopefully we will see a little more of the surrounding suburbs.