We have spent another busy day in the Capitol of New South Wales. We got out early this morning and had a guided tour of the Sydney Opera House. We also took advantage of a special offer to get tickets to see a play there tonight: "The Hanging Man."
After our tour, we took one of the ferries around Sydney Harbour to a place called Darling Harbour. There's a lot more to see & do there, but our objective was the Australian National Maritime Museum. We only had time to tour the destroyer Vampire, a submarine, and a replica of the Endeavour, the ship that Capt. Cook was sailing when he "discovered" Australia. It had been a collier, or coal carrier, that he converted into a scientific research and exploration vessel. A collier has a blunt bow and stern and a fairly flat keel, which makes it easy to run up on shore if repairs are needed and keeps it from tipping over when grounded. Since he did, in fact, run aground on the Great Barrier Reef, the fact that he was in a collier probably saved his expedition.
Right after that, we took the ferry to Luna Park. Now by today's standards, Luna park would be a fairly lame amusement park. As a historical artifact, however, it's phenomenal. There is a building there that houses some rides and amusements that haven't changed since the early 1900s. There are large slides that you ride a woven mat down, the "Turkey Trot" that is a series of lurching walkways that you have to negotiate, and a large, shallow cone that you sit in the middle of and that spins around until centrifugal force finally drives you off the center. There were also several "robot musicians" -- steam-powered automated musical attractions that, although beautifully restored and lit, were out of order.
Tomorrow is our last full day in Australia, and we're getting a little worried that we will miss something critical. We have to comfort ourselves in the fact that that we know we can't see everything and we've just got to make the best of what we can do. I am certainly sad that our time here is coming to an end, but I know that I've seen a part of the world that few of my countrymen will ever see. I'm not happy that I've seen it and they haven't, you understand, but it's just that I'm happy that I've seen it. Period.
Even though that means that you probably won't see it, truth be told. Except for sitting through a slide show of thousands of photographs (most of them really crappy or downright unrecognizable) and home videos. Of course, if Blair Witch Project gave you motion sickness, you'll be watching my video out on the deck with a water hose, 'cause it looks like I had the palsies when I shot the video.
Oh, well, I've had enough of taunting my "friends." If anything interesting happens tonight I'll post again in about 12 hours, or at the very least I'll get a final post or two in over the next couple of days. Take it easy!
Actually, if you really want to travel and see things like Emus, kangaroos, and drunken one-armed property managers, you can. You just have to be prepared to make sacrifices, just like anything else of value.
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