Maritime Museum - our Last Day

Sunday September 29th, 2013

Weather: Low 20's, overcast & sunny!

All good things must come to an end, and as our flight was not leaving until early in the evening, we had plenty of time to visit the Maritime Museum in Auckland.  I really enjoy visiting museums - not just because of the interesting artifacts that are on display, but learning about the history related to a specific location.  Coming from the UK - our history is well known to me - Kings & Queens, castles, industrial revolution etc.  Now living in Canada, our museums have lots of great information about the First Nations and then the European settlers.  Sydney's Maritime Museum taught us about the Aboriginal people, and then the settlers, so we were interested to lean more about the Maori People and New Zealand - the Auckland Maritime Museum did not fail to produce.  The surprising thing to learn is that New Zealand was settled relatively recently by the Maoris, and they are of Polynesian descent.  I would imagine that this is something that school children learn at an early age, but for us visitors - it was interesting.

So here are a few pics from the museum:

Did you notice the name in the background of the last photo?  It is the Northern Steamship Company - the same name as the pub that we had lunch at the day before (with the lamps hanging from the ceiling!)  It turns out that the pub is actually in the HQ of the Northern Steamship Company - what a connection!

As New Zealand just lost the Americas Cup (not named after the US as I had always thought, but after the name of boat that first won the race.  Learning.  Always learning!!) to the USA, I really enjoyed the Sir Peter Blake exhibition at the Museum.  He led the team that won the Americas cup in 1992 and his boat was there - it is HUGE!  I passed on buying his last book that was actually a collection of his log book entries right up until the day he was tragically killed.  I then spent the rest of the day trying to buy it at a book shop (without success) so I feel an order to Amazon coming on!!

Here are a few pics from that exhibition - including the 'shirt off his back'!

And that was the end of the trip.  Phew, what a trip it has been.  Just one more wrap up post - and a few more pics that didn't fit into the other posts, as well as final thoughts on a fabulous journey!

Sydney - Day 2

Saturday 21^st, September (more internet connection issues . . .so this post was prepped on the day, but I can only post it now!)

Weather: Hot and Sunny again!

Into Sydney for our second day, and this time we toured around on a ‘Hop On, Hop Off’ bus, in comparison to the boat. 

What another great way to see the city.  There was onboard commentary and we saw many highlights including great architecture, street performers, the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge etc., etc.,! 

This Coca-Cola sign is listed (I am not sure what the proper term is - like a heritage building, the outside cannot be changed) which is great news for the company.  What great advertising!

Ah yes, the Opera House, but from land this time.
 

This is what the tiles on the Opera House look like close up - herringbone ceramic tiles.  

My only criticism of the bus would be that it is very zippy, and there are not many chances to take photographs, however, it is a great way to see what you like – and get off an visit it later.

We got off at the Opera House and took a few more photos.  Some of the side roads were closed off as there appears to be a marathon happening tomorrow – with the finishing post being the Opera House.  Wow – what a fabulous run that would be (says the woman who has only run 5km charity runs around Birmingham!!!)  

The Opera House has over 1000 rooms, and up close looks rather dingy – very 70’s with the cream and brown.  We didn’t get chance to look inside, but I plan returning in the future.  I could easily spend a few weeks in and around Sydney, and next time it will be with the Mr.!

After our bus trip we visited the Maritime Museum.  There was a submarine that we could climb all over – HMAS Onslow:

As well as a boat, HMAS Vampire;

Being the granddaughter of a submariner from WW2, as well as the niece of two sailors, it was fantastic to wander round.  ON HMAS Vampire, the mechanical areas of the ship take up about 40% of the available space.  Quite amazing.  I would hazard a guess that the submarine lost even more space.  Boy was the sub cramped – height-wise it was OK, although crawling through the hatches was a pain (pun intended) with my owie knees, but well worth it to see what it was like on board.

We took a look around the regular exhibits of the museum, and it was interesting to see how much the convicts are mentioned as part of the heritage.  Before coming over, I wondered whether or not the whole issue of the UK sending convicts across the ocean to serve their sentences would be a bit ‘hush-hush’ and not mentioned, but quite the contrary.  The Viking exhibition was also interesting, in particular a piece about them dyeing fabrics/yarn etc for their clothing.  I had the impression that they wore dark or natural color clothing, but that was not the case.  They were able to dye primary colors and even mixed some (eg: yellow and blue to get green), but there was no evidence to support them mixing red and yellow to make orange.  Well, I found it interesting!

We had (very expensive but) tasty burgers at the Hard Rock Café, then took some breathtaking photos of the Cockle Bay at night, before returning home to our beds.  Tomorrow we are up at 0330am for our flights back to Adelaide . . . .

I have to say that the time spent in Sydney has been exhausting, but worth it.  I love this city and I have only seen a small, bitesize portion of it!  Au revoir Sydney!  BeaJay - I promise to stay longer next time!!