Things aren’t better with architectural masterpieces. Want to see baroque, renaissance, Gothic or whatever it is called – there is Versailles, Saint-Petersburg and German castles. But those who say there aren’t many historic places in Down Under are wrong – they are almost everywhere, one just need to have a look around. For example, take a look at this panoramic picture I took in one of sought after locations in Woolloomooloo

See the funny greenish building on right? Today it is a very expensive hotel and apartment block. I mean very expensive – one bedroom apartment for rent starts from $500 a week, which is, well, comparable with apartments in CBD, but something $150 more expensive than other 1br apartments in Sydney.
Anyway, this is not that important – 20 years ago this place was looking different

This picture has nothing to do with today’s anti-globalists movement. These people had more concrete reasons for going out – they were protecting their history.
The deal with this place is in that until mid 1980th that fancy greenish building on poles was nothing else but a big wharf and it was used as overseas passenger terminal. This is where post-war immigrants were first standing on Australian ground, this is where Australian troops were departing for Gallipoli and this is where survivors were returning to, but jumbo jets influence almost had nearly fatal concequences for the quay as after more than 70 years of service wharf was closed.

We all live in modern civilized world and no wonder that politicians and just wealthy and influential people did not loose a minute in taking a control on situation – the decision that Sydney needs another private marina in its center was taken shortly. But incredibly dying wharf found support in citizens (one of demonstration is on the picture above) and Australian Building Union put a ban (known as Green Ban) on any demolition and other works on site. Builders in Australia were always taken seriously and wharf remained untouched for a while.

Well, plans to demolish the wharf and build a big parking spot for boats were not embodied. Instead, Finger Wharf in Woolloomooloo had undergone plastic surgery and now there are plenty of water-side restaurants, hotel and number of apartments.
The building has large area inside open for public. Many thanks to builders – reconstruction did not alter barracks appearance (I think); moreover, antique wooden conveyors have been left where they were!

Their exposed gears complete interior

The conveyors’ lane is made from wood indeed:

No doubts, this is one of the most authentic places in Sydney. It has its own history, no matter it is shorter than 100 years, this place has a noticeable layer of country history behind and it is great that people some years ago said their convincing word in its protection.
But the way, it looks like modifications that transformed a wharf into block of apartments were not that massive. Initially had only practical purpose, internal passages expose all details of construction – all beams, bolts and rods supporting the frame can still be seen, but they perfectly complete the interior.

Впрочем, это больше имеет отношение к глобализму. А я собирался написать об искусстве. И о спичках тоже, только вот таких:

Эти КЦ явно подороже будут. Интересно, какого цвета штаны полагаются обладателю коробка таких зубочисток?

Такое чудо, названное автором “Almost Once”, призванное символизировать непонятно что и непонятно как, установлено почти в самом центре Сиднея. Если встать удачно, то памятник почти не заслоняет панораму Woolloomooloo (вроде не ошибся в количестве букв “O”):

А может, это просто такой стилизованный громоотвод?

А можно просто обозревать окрестности, в попытке избежать съемок избитых открыточных видов снимая то, что попадает в объективы гораздо реже.

Вот, например, памятник

Действительно, редкий кадр – на его месте обычно сидят аборигены с didgeridoo.

Следующая декорация тоже не живет постоянно на циркулярке

вместо этого этот якорь (а вы что подумали?) неустанно бороздит просторы мирового океана, неся на себе (или в себе) несколько тысяч тех, кто наконец заработал себе на кругосветный круиз. Или кому мы заработали на круиз (привет старику Марксу!) .

Кораблик явно с претензией

Вон как прямо-таки наехал на символ нашего Harbour City!

Если же посмотреть в другую сторону, то от картинки может случиться когинтивный диссонанс

Здание слева как будто сбежало из какого-нибудь фильма про Лондон. “Карты, деньги, два ствола” подходят прекрасно – тот же красный кирпич, та же архитектура. Пальмы же, произрастающие напротив, сводят все сходство со столицей Туманного Альбиона на нет и если бы не спасительный силуэт Вешалки на заднем плане (еще бы пандус с машиной убрать), то вопрос “откуда в Лондоне пальмы” можно было бы принять за чистую монету.

И тут опять, снова этот вездесущий генерал… ой, нет, в этом случае он ни при чем

очень жаль, у меня как раз с собой был спиннинг.

Штуковина на пирсе показывает примерно 15 psi. К счастью, это не атмосферный барометр, впрочем, время в ожидании парома до Менли можно скоротать в попытках оценить отностительную погрешность измерения

В Менли интересно и всегда можно освежиться.

Такие фонтанчики там встроены прямо в тротуар. Не уверен, но вроде есть возможность регулировать напор воды, в любом случае эти штуковины пользуются большой популярностью среди детей. Родителям на заметку – портативный сушильный автомат и центрифуга будут не лишними

На обратном пути было сложно удержаться от пары кадров в урбанистическом стиле. Впрочем, в жанрах я не силен и следующую фотографию могу охарактеризовать как “ночь. улица. желтый фонарь. аптека уже закрылась и на улицах все равно никого”

Кто-то явно перешел на сверхсветовую скорость в момент, когда я делал этот снимок

Ланковка как обычно встречает миниатюрным зоопарком

Во взгляде читается немой вопрос – а не опухли ли вы слоняться тут в одиннадцать часов ночи? Задав вопрос, поссум с диким топотом побежал по забору дальше, а мы пошли наконец спать…

Да, давненько я что-то ничего такого не выкладывал… похоже, время устроить бушвок какой или еще чего.

Как бы то ни было, наш старичок еще на что-то способен.

Это вид на Bega Valley, долину имени сыра. Точнее, это место, где производится популярный в Австралии сыр торговой марки Bega. Панорама кликабельна.

Конечным перевалочным пунктом нашего путешествия был городок Merimbula, где из нашей комнаты в мотеле открывался такой вид, что не сделать из него панораму было бы просто непростительно

Вот на этой оптимистичной ноте прошу первую серию рассказов из цикла “Австралия глазами иммигрантов, строящих из себя туристов” считать законченной

Кстати, что многоуважаемые читатели думают о Sony Alpha 200? Мемористик зло, я знаю…

Even judging in Australia’s distances, Ben Boyd national park is situated quite far, on very south of New South Wales, near Eden. Ben Boyd was businessman and, arrived among first settlers, did not lose a minute and started investing in Australia straight away. Old Ben has chosen that place for headquarter of his financial empire and some time later a town named “Boydtown” appeared there. Imagine if modern Redmond was called Gatesville, that’s exactly what happened.

Anyway, I was not going to impress readers with expatiations about what if grandma was grandpa. As you can see from picture above, there might be something quite impressive without my speculations. Ben Boyd decided to build that tower (of course, it is now called “Ben Boyd tower”) and use it as a lighthouse, but officials did not allow them to operate private lighthouse, which did not seem to frustrate him – he quickly converted it into whale watching station. Unfortunately, it was far less environmentally friendly activity these days which had nothing to do with modern whale watching tours – Eden and surroundings were a whaling center then and even now, after total ban of whaling, Eden still bears a stamp of whaling economy and anyone interested can visit Museum of whaling there.

Regardless what we thing about that kind of business now, it was pretty profitable venture. The tower brought a huge handicap to Boyds’ whalers – in trade of that kind fist to spot a whale was likely one who wins the prize and there could not be better place to observe the sea than that tower so conveniently located at the edge of high cliff

Construction of the tower itself is not less interesting. Old Ben obviously decided to build monument for himself, otherwise it would be hard to explain why he spent so much money on it. The tower is built from sandstone blocks that were delivered from Sydney – if Boyd was building it today, he probably would have to hire (better buy) a couple of cargo jets and use them to ship natural stone from Italy, not mentioned that the tower project should be modified to achieve total height of something around six hundred meters to make it not less impressive than existing tower looked these days

But we can only guess what Ben Boyd was really up to when he was building this piece of middle-age Europe here, in the middle of nowhere. I think he might have wanted to build his own financial empire, retire young and rich and spend his evenings on the top of the tower with a cup of tea accomplished with a million dollar view.

And this is awesome. I know that it is very hard to understand what it really is from the picture but you must trast me that it was not easier there

This rock exposes a its internal structure which was screwed, crashed, pressed and then folded millions years ago resulting in this spectacular snail-like figure./p>

The park itself is quite large. So its residents

Despite its nearly-dinosaur size, this lizard is quite shy and tried to hide in the bush as we tried to approach.

Green Cape walk, anyone?

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To be continued…

And this is what happened to us in Mogo. We were just overwhelmed by its exciting zoo and it seemed there was nothing similarly exciting. Well, there was another surprise. They have got the Museum there!

Hopefully, it is not an inquisition museum. This is Gold Rush Theme Park, or Old Mogo Town

Australia’s as a nation is very young and can count only about 200 years yet, but despite that its history is very interesting and in some aspects is just amazing. The nation started as a high-security prison where prisoners were kept in conditions very similar to their guards, but the period where the easiest way to get there was to commit crime in Old England was not long and ended short after people started considering being sentenced to Australia not as punishment but as a new chance. Free artists and pilgrims of 19 century started to arrive in Down Under by themselves. And, accidentally, at roughly the same time the gold was found in Australia.

At that times Mogo was a gold mining center. Some say the town started after someone found a nugget in a creek.

Warning sign is excessive – I would not go into that water in any condition.

Oh right, someone was happy to find some gold there and this is how it started. I am not sure how many digger exactly came there after “easy” money, but the fact that soon after gold rush infected Mogo, there were more about 40 only legal places where citizens could have a drink says many words (not sure if they have any now).

I think this Gold Rush Theme Park is a very successful attempt to build a replica that actually passes the vibrations of that time. Gold harvesting in nineteen century conditions where where were no hammer drills and PS2 was not an easy task. Especially for desperate visitors, museum authorities organized a five minutes gold wash introductory course and even provide authentic plates, sand and water so anyone can try to harvest some gold to pay off credit card debt
But it does not look even nearly as exciting as in western movies – diggers were spending all the day under burning sun washing thousands of kilos of sand with very little hope to find any gold. The process itself was not fast at all – one medium plate of sand required at least 20 minutes to process and chances of finding any small gold grain were vain.

When all sand from the bed of creek was processed, they started to build mines.

This is modern version of gold mine and it has very little in common to how they really looked these days almost two hundred years ago. Nobody built such a spacious tunnels, they were usually just as wide and as high as it required for digger to get in be able to work. And, of course, there were no reinforcement constructions at all. There mines were nothing else but holes in the ground.

However, modern technologies of 19 century reached Mogo as well

This enormous piece of machinery was used to crush rocks from mines. They pass rocks again and again through it until they become a sand. At close look the machine looks very impressive. The noise it produces is not less impressive as well. An interesting fact that this machine was owned by English government and anyone who used it had to pay a fee.

By the way, all gold harvested had to be sold to English government too. And this was one of the reasons why first Australians of European origin did not like those who came from China. That’s right, there was a little Chinatown in old Mogo

At first, unlike Europeans they used cutting edge technology of that time – work in a team. As I understood, they were not even allowed to use sand from the creek’s bed (and, probably, to dig their own mines), but they managed to run on their more privileged colleagues’ used materials – the sand disposed after first wash still could contain some gold grains.
At second, they had their own opinion about when to invest their gold and instead of selling it to English crown, they tried to traffic it back to china (Did they become the first smugglers known in Australia?)

Unfortunately, the Fortune sometimes shows us the same body part as this Mogo resident.

Museum authorities ask anyone who takes any photos and videos in old Mogo not to use them for any commercial means or in advertisements. I am not quite sure whether my blog could be seen commerce of some kind or advertisement, but I do not want to reveal any more Mogo’s secrets. At first, I don’t wan to be sued by some truth seeker, at second, this place with no any doubts deserves a visit. I just cannot describe diggers life and town structure as good as their professional guides do; in any case their showpieces are definitely worth a look and sometimes a touch.
And, at last, not anyone can stay cold to the chance to improve finances by washing a couple of kilos of gold off the sand. But, as far as I know, the last case of such a great luck happened more than hundred years ago.

Finding the museum is not rocket science at all:

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To be continued…