Sydney, Part 1

I spent my last three nights in Australia in the wonderful city of Sydney. This page chronicles my first full day there.
 

	I actually stayed in the town of Manly across the bay from Sydney. Here is a picture out the window of my room at the Manly Paradise Motel. Every day I would take the ferry to and from Sydney.
	I started my first day tour of Sydney at The Rocks, the oldest (European) settlement in Australia. This building is Cadmans Cottage built in 1816. It is named after John Cadman, a pardoned convict that later worked for the government as a regulator of the colony's waterways.
	The Coroners Court, built in 1907. Notice that it is built on a slab of exposed rock (the orange section in the lower-center).
	A shot of the Harbour Bridge with the Overseas Passenger Terminal accross the cove from where I'm standing.
	The Australasian Steam Navigation Company Building (1884) has a Flemish clock tower once used to spot incoming ships.
	It's a ship and I no longer remember anything about it.
	Kendall Plaza (I think).
	Foundation Park, where you can see one artist's idea of what it was like to live in an old house based on existing structures.
	The Argyle Cut. Started in 1843, halted in 1845 when goverment use of convict labor was outlawed, blasted open in 1859.
	Susannah Place, 58-64 Gloucester St. Four historic houses built in 1844.
	A shot of North Sydney across the bay from Observatory Park.
	A war memorial in Observatory Park.
	The telescope in the observatory in Observatory Park. Like many Australian observatories, this was built to observe a 19th-century transit of Venus across the Sun only visible in the Southern Hemisphere.
	Exterior of the observatory.
	Next I visited the Sydney Aquarium. Here is a picture of a platypus.
	A crocodile -- from above!?! Watch your step, matey!
	A ray -- from below? Yep, some fish tanks at the aquarium allow you to walk under the water.
	And it's big tank full of many fish, and sharks, and rays, oh my!
	A picture of tropical fish similar to what I saw at the Great Barrier Reef.
	Although it's hard to guage the scale, the fish in the center of this picture is very big -- bigger than two of your heads (assuming you had two heads).
	I took this picture of some festivities taking place at the Convention Centre (across a cove from the Aquarium), not realizing until the next day that this was a celebration of the "one year to go before the Olympics." Drat.
	I took the monorail from the Aquarium to downtown Sydney. (I'm not sure which is shorter, the Sydney or the Disneyland monorail.) This is the Town Hall built in 1889.
	A picture from within Town Hall. Note the Olympic flags.
	Another picture in Town Hall.
	And another.
	This is a shot of the Queen Victoria Building, built in 1883, that has been converted into a high-end shopping mall.
	A picture inside the shopping mall.
	A picture of the nify dome of the shopping mall. Note the little balcony in the corner.
	This is the lobby to a theater. Which one, I don't know.
	The next two picture are from Martin Place, a closed off street that is the closest the city center has to a plaza.
	An interesting building along Martin Place.
	This is the Mitchell Library from the west. The statue is of Matthew Flinders. The plaque reads: MATTHEW FLINDERS 1774 - 1814 CAPTAIN IN THE ROYAL NAVY HE EXPLORED AND SKILFULLY CHARTED A LARGE PORTION OF THE AUSTRALIAN COAST DURING THE YEAR 1796 TO 1803 Information on plaque gathered from the Dromana and District Historical Society website.
	The Sydney Opera House (like I need to tell you that).