A Quiet Weekend

Lincoln and I were both tired this past weekend and decided to be slow and easy. Saturday morning found us walking along the Navy yard and up into Potts Point for a few groceries and then to sit out at one of the many patio restaurants and enjoy raisin toast, tea and coffee. There was a mini flea market set up in the square in front of us and we wandered over after our drinks and perused the stalls, mostly food vendors bringing in their vegetables to sell, although there were also a couple of stalls selling homemade pies and cakes. Much to our surprise one booth was selling organic vegetables, which you do not see here very often. We then walked home and ate lunch and decided we would walk over to Government House for one of the tours that were being offered. It is a 15 min. walk from our place, and is actually in the Domain, with the Botanical Gardens on the water side of the house.

The first Government House was erected in 1788, it was one large tent in Circular Quay, which can also just be seen from the present site. Edward Blore (1789-1879) of England was hired by the then Govenor Bourke to design the house. It is said that he did not think it correct to have one of the Australian architects design it as they were all convicts at one point in time. The house was constructed between 1837-1845 and is in the Gothic Revival Style. England originally granted the Govenor 16,000 lb which was a huge amount at that time, but eventually the cost ran to 46,000 lb ( I need a different keyboard) The house has an outstanding collection of 19th and 20th century furnishings and decorations in the Dining Room, Drawing Room and Ball Room.

We were told that every time a new Govenor and family moved in the house was then redecorated to their tastes, so as you can imagine it has seen many a make over. Presently the Drawing Room has a beautiful multi toned red rug and the sofa and chairs, along with the drapes are all a lovey raspberry red, the walls are in soft green decorative wall paper, sounds gaudy, but looks very becoming. The Drawing Room opened up to the Ball Room, which has a balcony for the muscians to be seated in, along with alcoves on the side of the main floor for more muscians. This room has wide striped wooden floors and again green and gold wall paper with matching gold drapes. This is the room that the APEC ministers met in when they were in Australia in September.

The house has not been used as a residence since 1996 when the then Premier Robert Carr moved the Govenor to more modest premises on the North Shore at Kirribilli. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside the house, although Lincoln did take a couple from outside through the windows.

In the front entrance hangs the portraits of the first Govenors and once you enter the main hallway it again holds more current portraits. One thing that we did not know was that Captain Bligh was a Govenor of Australia. He governed from 1806 until Jan 1808 when he was unceremoniously removed from office, ie arrested. He had upset a number of people, and was accused of using Goverment funds for his own purposes. He remained confined in Sydney refusing to promise to sail to England if liberated. He stayed in Sydney until Governor Lachlan Macquarie arrived in Sydney and finally set sail for England on 12 May 1810.


Sunday we were off to the Maritime Museum to visit 2 of the ships that are permanently docked at the harbour. The Museum is over at Darling Harbour, our usual 30 min walk thru Hyde Park to the bridge crossing the harbour. This is a lovely museum which is free to one and all, although there is a charge to visit the ships. The first ship we boarded was the Daring Class Destroyer HMAS Vampire, it was built at Cockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney and was the last of three Daring Class Destroyers built in Australia. She was launched Oct 27, 1956 and commissioned June 22, 1959, that is how long it took to outfit it. She served in the Royal Australian Navy from 1959 until 1986. She essentiallly had a peaceful career, and took part in the SETO exercises off Singapore during the Indonesian Confrontation with Malaysia in 1965 and made troop escort runs to Vietnam in 1965, 66, 67 and 69. She was selected as the RAN escort for the HMY Britannia during the Queen's Silver Jubilee tour of Australia in 1977. During 1980 Vampire was refitted as a training ship and became a member of the RAN Training Squardron. These Destroyers were strong, and of lightweight construction, combined with powerful steam turbines allowed for high speeds (30.5 knots) with maximum armament which included 3 twin turrets housing 4.5" guns, anti aircraft guns, torpedo launchers and anti submarine mortors. We were given the tour of this ship by a former sailor, he was great and gave a grand explanation of the guns and how the shots were loaded,(quite a big deal when you actually see where they worked) we saw where they slept and ate, the officers mess, the wheel house, which was not on the top deck as I thought but 2 decks below. It was hot inside and was hard to imagine people actually living in those close conditions. We also were shown where they washed their cloths and how they had to be folded or were made to do it over again. He told us of a few of the antics that the crew got up to and the shore trips that they took and then the consequences of their actions. It was a pleasure to listen to him.

Lincoln then went off to visit the HMAS Onslow, which is a Oberon Class Submarine, which was decomissioned in 1999. This ship is complete and is close to operational condition. It was built by Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Co. Ltd., Greenoch, Scotland and launched Dec 3, 1968 and Commissioned Dec 22, 1969 it had a diving depth of 180m. She could carry a crew of 8 Officers, 60 Sailors and up to 16 Trainees. Her most secretive work was tracking Soviet submarines moving into the Arabian Gulf from Vladivstok via the Coral Sea and the Great Australian Bight. The Great Australian Bight is the largest indentation on the Australian Coast, it is said to be the longest line of sea cliffs in the world. The white coloured rock near the base of the cliffs is known to geologists as Wilson Bluff Limestone and it was formed on the sea bed between 38 and 42 million years ago. Another interesting point is that Australia appears to be the only nation which recognises the Southern Ocean, to most of the world it is still the Indian Ocean. Beyond the shelf break, where the water is around 200m deep (as far out as 190Km from the coast line), the sea bed slopes down gradually to 4,000 meters (4Km deep). The coast line is aligned with the equator, meaning it runs east to west instead of north to south. It is the longest ice free coast line running in this direction the Southern Hemisphere.

I did not go onto the submarine as the tour was just finishing on the Destroyer. It was the last tour of the day on the submarine and Lincoln really wanted to see it. The down side is that we were so engrossed with what we were learning that we did not take pictures of the inside of either ship.

I hope you do not find this too boring, but I am finding it fascinating to learn as much as I can about this lovely country. I'm not sure I would have paid that much attention at school but when you are in the country seeing things for yourself they take on a whole new meaning.