As someone who walks a bit I've got quite a few pairs of boots with all of them in different stages of disrepair, my boots of choice are
Scarpa boots and over the years I've had a pretty good run with them. Last year I said goodbye to a pair and left them on the window sill at the Shangri La at The Shard after they had blown a sole walking around London. This year I said good-bye to my oldest pair of scarpas, this pair were actually on there second sole's having been re-fettled years ago. Among other places these boots had walked Kokoda, climbed Mt Bowen on Hinchenbrook, waded through the Tasmanian mud on walks to Frenchmans Cap and on the Overland Track, as well as baked on the red rocks of the Larapinta and the Jatbula Tracks. It wasn't a really hardcore walk that finished them off though, it was my walk from Kurnell to Cronulla, the sole on both the boots splitting completely in half in the soft sand. So anyway after leaving my last pair on the window sill at The Shard I decided to leave this pair on the window sill of the Marriott Hotel in Circular Quay, so these boots could enjoy the view over the Opera House in perpetuity.
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| Goodbye old friends........ |
Luckily on this trip I had my back up footware with me, yep my hiking havaianas! And thankfully this walk was basically a stroll on path ways for the length of the walk. Leaving the hotel we (yes Sam was accompanying me on this walk) strolled down Pitt Street to the start of our notes at Circular Quay....and immediately made ourselves comfortable at one of the cafes were we watched the world bustling past for the next hour or so. Eventually though we decided that we'd better head off in case we didn't make it back before dark, although with so many major land marks on this walk we were hardly in danger of getting lost in the dark. Immediately after setting off we got to our first little known land mark, something called the Sydney Opera House! No matter how many times I've gazed at this building it never fails to impress, apparently the architect who designed it Jorn Utzon describes it as a sculpture made into a living thing by the interplay of sun, light and clouds on it's reflective surface and that adds up to me as it always takes my breath away.
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Three minutes after leaving our hotel we'd already stopped for a coffee.
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Looking back to Circular Quay from the forecourt of the Opera House.
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Leaving the Opera House by the Queen Elizabeth II gate we made our way around Farm Cove towards Mrs Macquaries Point. The track wedged between the harbour and the Royal Botanic Gardens, this must be a sought after spot to watch the New Years Eve fireworks as we had uninterrupted views past the Opera House to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. After checking out a large sandstone overhang we rounded the point and arrived at Mrs Macquaries Chair, the spot where Governor Macquaries wife used to like to sit and contemplate life back in the early 1800's and it still performs the same function for tourists today.
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The Royal Botanic Gardens.
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| Looking back across Farm Cove from at the large sandstone overhang on Mrs Macquaries Point. |
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We now wandered along beside Woolloomooloo Bay past the Andrew Boy Charlton pool, before heading into the heart of the botanic gardens. Now I could try and tell you about all the wonderful trees that we saw with their intriguing botanic names but really I can't remember many of them, flora isn't really my forte. What I can tell you is that, as you would expect the gardens are very impressive, the other notable thing about the gardens is the world class views from them, its hard to beat a view of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. After foregoing the temptations of the cafe at the Palm Grove Centre we continued on to Cadi Jam Ora, this is a memorial wall featuring the history of the local Cadigal indigenous people, what was very surprising to me was how accurate the history of the Cadigal people was, there was definitely no sugar coating some of the atrocities that we have perpetrated on our indigenous people. While the memorial wall featured history up to and including the Wave Hill protests and sorry day, it didn't feature Keating's Redfern Speech, which was a milestone in our treatment of our indigenous people I think (I may be getting a few of the details of this display mixed up with another information board about indigenous history that I was reading at Kurnell a couple of days earlier). Cadi Jam Ora is definitely worth checking out if you've got some time in Sydney.
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Mrs Macqaries Chair.
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Andrew Boy Charlton Pool, Woolloomooloo Bay.
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We now followed Art Gallery Road past, yeah you guessed it, the Art Gallery of NSW. With St Mary's Cathedral guiding us forward we soon arrived at the historic Hyde Park Barracks which dates back to the early 1800's. The Hyde Park Barracks housed male convicts who were working on local government projects back in the day. With the day quickly now fading to black we made our way down Macquarie Street, passing Martin Place I kept my eye out for the cash cow, alas no cashed up bovines were heading my way today. Our next point of interest was the NSW Parliament House, if I've got this right this place was a bit of a surprise. I was expecting a grand old stone building something that is pretty common down in Victoria with our old government buildings, but the NSW parliament is a bit of a pokey building (relatively speaking) with a tin roof, it looked downright rustic to my eyes!
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Check out Cadi Jam Ora if you have a chance on your next visit to Sydney.
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St Marys Cathedral
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Hyde Park Barracks
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Our hardcore walk was quickly coming to its conclusion, the main interest now was whether we'd make it back to the hotel before it got dark. Making my way down Macquarie Street, mingling with the office workers heading home after another day I must of looked a bit of a strange sight in my thongs and back pack. (for all my os readers it's not as bad as you may be thinking, thongs in Australia are flip flops or my favourite, jandals). Dropping down some stairs we were once again at Circular Quay and our walk was over, all that was left was to wander back up to the Marriott on Pitt Street and decide on what we would do for dinner that night, ah yes first world problems indeed.
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Where's that bloody cash cow.....
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The NSW Parliament House.
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The Dirt.
We walked around 5.5 kilometres on this stroll, metres climbed would be negligible, probably less than 100 metres over the length of the walk I would guess (my GPS was cactus at the time we did this walk). We used Katrina O'Brien's notes out of the Woodslane book
Sydney's Best Harbour & Coastal Walks, it's walk number 20 in the 3rd edition. As I've mentioned on this trip to Sydney we stayed at
the Marriott Hotel in Circular Quay, this hotel has become a bit of a favourite for us when we are up in Sin City. The hotel is in a great spot with some stunning views over the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge as well as being a pleasant enough walk up into the CBD. My other favourite thing I like about staying here is that the brekkies are great, yeah it doesn't take much to make me happy!
Relevant Posts.
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| Descending down the steps back to Circular Quay from Macquarie Street, the circuit was now complete. |
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| Sin City is a beautiful city. |
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