The big surprise of our first day in Australia was the birds. Really weird birds, with fat bodies, short necks, tiny heads, long legs and even longer beaks. I had never before seen anything like them except in pictures, and here they were, right out in a public park, nonchalantly poking around in the grass, mostly oblivious to the humans strolling and picnicking around them. Except for Sandie and me, those humans didn’t pay much attention to them, either, so they must have been a common sight in Sydney.
Eventually I found out that these were Australian white ibises. They would not be the last exotic and bizarre avians we encountered in Australia. We had arrived in Sydney via Qantas early in the morning, and had the whole day to wander around and recover from a 17-hour flight. We headed for downtown Sydney and soon found ourselves in Hyde Park, Australia’s oldest public park and the location of some of Sydney’s major attractions.
Hyde Park in Sydney of course takes its name from the original in London, and the British Empire is very much in evidence in its Australian incarnation. Strolling around the park, we encountered statues of Queen Victoria, her consort Prince Albert, and the explorer Captain Cook. We found a lovely old Anglican church, St. James’, dating from 1824. On the east side of the park, we found the Australian Museum, Sydney’s oldest museum, dating from 1827; it features zoological and anthropological exhibits. We spent a couple of hours there, and then went on to continue our exploration of the Hyde Park area.
Hyde Park with Frazer Fountain at left. Frazer Fountain is one of two elegant fountains donated by a wealthy businessman, John Frazer, in the 1880s.
Queen Victoria Monument. Queen Victoria (r. 1837-1901) was the longest-reigning British monarch before Queen Elizabeth II.
Prince Albert Monument, next to Hyde Park Barracks. Formerly a prison, Hyde Park Barracks is now a museum. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was Queen Victoria's consort from their marriage in 1840 to his death in 1861.
Captain Cook Monument, Hyde Park. Captain James Cook (1728-1779) did not discover Australia, but he was the first to explore its east coast, which he claimed for Britain.
St. James Anglican Church, 1824, the oldest church in Sydney, with Sydney Tower in background.
A large, fine tree in Hyde Park, with Sydney Tower towering over it in the background. Sydney Tower is the tallest structure in Sydney, at 309 meters (1014 feet).
On the northeast of Hyde Park we found St. Mary’s, an imposing Gothic-style Roman Catholic cathedral which is the seat of the Archbishop of Sydney. It was begun in 1868 and largely completed by 1928, when the nave was dedicated, although the spires were only added in 2000.
The entrance to St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.
Sandie in St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
I'm a big fan of stained glass, and St. Mary's features some quite elegant and beautiful stained-glass windows.
After exploring Hyde Park and its environs, we didn’t have much time to explore the rest of downtown Sydney before we had to call it a day and return to our hotel. We wanted to ascend Sydney Tower, where one can obtain a fabulous view of the city and surrounding areas from the observation deck, but by this time we were exhausted and decided to leave it for another day. Because our subsequent days in Sydney were so full, though, we never made it to the top of Sydney Tower; but I did manage to capture a few snapshots of interesting sights in the city as we wended our way back to the hotel.
The pediment of the Registrar-General's Building (Land Titles Office), c. 1913, near Hyde Park, features a very British-Imperial bas-relief with a lion and a unicorn.
Statue of Matthew Flinders (1774-1814), outside the State Library of New South Wales. Flinders was the first to circumnavigate Australia and one of the first to apply the name "Australia" to the island continent, which up to then had been known as New Holland or Terra Australis.
This quintessentially Australian coat-of-arms on a government building in Sydney features a kangaroo and an emu.
Busy boulevard in the Sydney Central Business District (CBD), the heart of the city.
Equestrian statue of King Edward VII, Queen Victoria's successor, who reigned from 1901 to 1910, at Macquarie & Bridge Streets, near Sydney Conservatorium.