SHE'S ALL GROWN UP - AND LOOKING GREAT!!

The City of Sydney in myriad shapes from the Botanical Gardens
with Pyramidal hot house atop the grassy knoll.

The purpose of my visit to the City on Wednesday morning fell through. This left me free to roam about, and, as the weather was pleasant for a change, I chose to visit the Botanical Gardens and the City proper to take some photos.

I had long been familiar with the Gardens since my childhood, and thus familiar also with the view from there across to Garden Island Dockyard where my father had worked on the immense Graving Dock during World War II, and also with the view back to the City.

The visit and my subsequent walk about the City brought a number of things to view and to mind.

Short on grace of line - H.M.A.S. CHOULES replaces the rusting ships astern of her.

Looking across to Garden Island where until the previous day the huge cruise liner QUEEN MARY II had berthed - the Passenger Terminal wharves could not accommodate her - I saw an equally gross sight:

The Royal Australian Navy's latest ship. She is H.M.A.S. CHOULES (named after Claude CHOULES who died at age 110 and who was the last surviving combat veteran of WWI, he had also served in WWII. This seems to be some sort of departure in the naming of R.A.N. ships which, unless I am mistaken, ( save for the 6 "Collins"Class submarines) have not normally gone down the American path of naming some ships after personalities. However that may be, CHOULES is one of the most unfortunate looking naval vessels I have ever seen. The superstructure is all fairly well for'ard to accommodate its loading purpose, and piled up very high. The whole thing looks very ungainly. The ship is a former Royal Navy vessel H.M.S. Largs Bay, an equally awkward name. She became redundant when the British Government put the squeeze on the R.N. in the wake of the G.F.C. As it happened, the two landing ships the R.A.N. had acquire in another "quickie“deal, this time with the U.S.N., and which can be glimpsed astern of CHOULES, both proved to be rapidly deteriorating " rust buckets" and after few years of service have been paid off.CHOULES is much larger, and more versatile and will hopefully have a longer life than they did, if nowhere as long as her namesake.

I walked around Lady Macquarie's Chair the giant stone seat carved into the hillside on the Headland between Farm Cove and Woolloomooloo Bay looking north across the Harbour. What Lady Macquarie would have made of the hordes of Asian tourist groups crowding densely around her chair and the headland can only be guessed -but it might have done her a lot of good to witness it. How different a mature and independent Australia is from the Colony her husband governed so well!

Looking across Farm Cove to our town Sydney - all grown up and looking great

 

Across Farm Cove of course lay the Opera House on the site of the former Tram Depot called Fort Macquarie, and further on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which was only 8 years old when I was born. From the lawns of the Botanical Gardens I looked up to the City, and came to the conclusion that the vast aggregation of tall buildings works rather well visually. Their characters are rather different, but in some way are complementary to one another the old town has grown up - and she looks great!

Here and there are traces of a previous time! And "time" is a good reference to use. For the several clock towers which once raised their giant timepieces high above the City's roofs, are, with the exception of the Central Station clock tower, largely obscured by later development.

                                                               The LANDS DEPARTMENT Clock Tower dwarfed 

Bridge Street was once a magnificent avenue of sandstone Government and Commercial buildings for the greater part. Here we see the Lands Department clock tower which is dwarfed by the surrounding office towers, but still retaining its dignity. Not so fortunate was the Royal Exchange Building which was demolished in the 1950s to make way for an undistinguished office block. It had been a particularly pleasing building, which featured on its Pitt Street frontage stairs going down to the Winecellar Restaurant just below street level.

THE ROYAL EXCHANGE BUIDING that was, Bridge Street Sydney about 1900,
the LANDS DEPARTMENT is to the left, its Clock Tower is obscured bythe mass of the RE building.

The Town Hall clock tower is seen in the distance as we look past the great Queen Victoria Building, which stood virtually empty for all of my early life and was threatened with demolition several times, but late in its life was brought to life as type of up market shopping precinct in the 1960s.Thank Heaven it was saved.

Town Hall Clock Tower seen at the South end of York Street seems ro be almost swalllowed up.
Queen Victoria Building to the left is enjoying its relatively recent renaissance.

The last of our proud towers is that of Central Station now left on the Southern extremity of the CBD, as development ebbed away from it with the advent of the City Railway underground in 1926. In the last year or so the Central Station Clock tower has been entirely renovated and now looks brilliant lording it's presence over one of the finest large railway buildings in the world.

Looking just great - the Clock Tower of Sydney Central Station
newly re-furbished.

I also included in my City tour St. Patrick's Church, Church Hill where I was able to go to Confession, Mass and Communion. St.Patrick's itself has been tastefully and respectfully in the last several years and is a spiritual powerhouse, with almost continuous Confessions and multiple regular Masses

All in all, a very pleasing and re- assuring morning, Sydney not only has a great past, but a mighty present. And she has a confident, brilliant future!