Sydney (Cell Block H) New South Wales

Sydney is now Australia’s largest city and the first British colony founded in 1788 at Sydney Cove by Arthur Phillip, commodore of the First Fleet. The city was built on hills surrounding Sydney Harbour, an inlet of the Tasman Sea. The indigenous people that were here for at least 30,000 years before the British settlements are mainly from the Cadigal tribe but the British called them “Eora” because when asked where they came from, these people would answer “Eora”, meaning “here”. These people were split into 3 main clans that all spoke different languages, Darug, Dharawal and Guringai each having their own territories. I bet it was the Aboriginal people that had to learn English rather than the other way around.

A few years earlier in 1770, British sea Captain Lieutenant James Cook landed in Botany Bay where Cook made contact with the Aboriginal community known as the Gweagal. The first convict settlement arrived in a fleet of 11 ships on January 18th 1788 but the site was deemed unsuitable for habitation so they moved further up the coast to Sydney Cove on 26th January 1788. The original name was to be Albion until Philip decided upon Sydney after the British Home Secretary Thomas Townsend, or Lord Sydney. In April 1789 alone around 1000 Aboriginal people died of smallpox brought over by the Brits. Again, population increases due to the gold rush around the 1850’s saw exponential growth.

Sydney also has a large China town, I don’t think I am going to loose any weight while we are on this holiday.


We had a great start with sunshine from the start and only about 80 miles left to our destination. This last stretch wasn’t as pretty as yesterdays stretch but we stuck to the Princess highway into Sydney and I had programmed the car park rather than the hotel into the satnav so we could get rid of that first. We found it relatively trouble free although we weren’t convinced that we had parked in the correct carpark so we locked up and set off on foot to find the hotel. We found it fine but they said that we could not check in until 2pm so we headed back to the car to get the bags, drop off and have a walk around Darling Harbour where we would be staying for the next 4 nights. We had a quick look at the pool near reception and also spotted the gym next door. We had a walk down to the harbour for a drink and it was as good as everyone had told us before we got here.

Great, we went back to check in and we have a large lounge kitchenette with a separate bathroom / laundry room and a separate bedroom with a queen bed. We also had a balcony but that was a little disappointment because we didn’t get the Darling Harbour view that we expected but instead a very large dull brick wall. Outside in the corridor it looked a bit like “Cell Block H”; I guess they had modelled it on the first buildings that the British had built when they first came to Australia. That was fine until I thought I could hear some inmates, no guests, clanking their metal cups on the bars. We headed off for the lift to try and get out again but the lift never came; we waited for what seemed like about 10 minutes and then looked for the stairs because we only needed to go down one floor and found a door marked as fire exit. We walked down the stairs to our floor but it was locked, we walked back up again to the door we had come out of but that was locked. I found the outside door also marked fire exit but I noticed a sign that said there was a $1000 fine for a false alarm. Shit, no phones, no obvious way out so we went down another floor but that was also locked; Claire started to change, after all it was my idea to try the stairs. We went up to the top flight and bingo; it was open so we waited patiently for the lift and got out.

We again went to the harbour but this time to eat so we inspected all the menus outside each place but they were all quite high priced because of the location. Also they all have set times for lunch and set times for dinner with about a 2 hour gap and we had just missed lunch. Claire found a place that still did lunch until 5pm instead of the usual 4pm so we sat in the sun while I got the drinks and looked for a menu. I couldn’t find a menu so asked at the bar where I was told that lunch had finished and dinner didn’t start until 6pm but they had a snack menu which I took back. Claire decided to wait bit as I wasn’t that hungry, probably because of the stress of the day; I haven’t told you about the Christmas Cruise on Sydney harbour that I had booked online yet. Anyway, I settled for the snack menu which I really enjoyed.

A tall guy on the next table seemed to be trying to catch my eye and eventually we started to talk. He was a marketing manager for a large hotel chain and a 5th generation Irish Australian that had first came here on Her Majesties Service. I thought, great we might get some escape tips from our apartment. He turned out to be a really great guy with immense knowledge of, not only Australia, but the world and was incredibly well travelled. He borrowed a pen and paper from the bar and wrote a list of all the places that he advised us to see on our trip between Brisbane and Townsville which will be a great help when we get to that leg. He, like us was enjoying the wine on the harbour; in fact his email address is lord.chardonnay@can’t_give_you_the_rest.com.au. He left us his card expecting us to give him a call so he can show us the sights of Sydney bars over Christmas as he is between partners and expecting a lonely Christmas.

Have a great Christmas and wish us luck on getting onto the Sydney Harbour Christmas lunch Cruise that we have booked, paid for but can’t seem to get a receipt or directions to and nobody is answering the phone because it’s Christmas! Have a good one!