Woolkoolga – Newcastle – Sydney

Driving on to south I saw many small towns by the coast. Pacific Highway mainly runs by the coast. Before Newcastle I stopped in Sandgate.

As my “Frog” is not very good looking I decided to put some stickers on it. At first I thought to buy some material myself and design a flower or two.  Then I saw a company offering just what I needed! It was car painting company and they also make stickers. They made some flower stickers within couple of hours for my “Frog”. “Frog” looks different now and is much happier!

Sydney is the oldest city and the biggest city in Australia. Sydney lies down by the coast with its suburbia. The coast is mainly very rocky and there are many little bays. Little bit south from Sydney is the place where Captain Cook landed in 1770. Captain Cook did not discover Australia. Information about Australia was brought to Europe by Dutch and Spanish sailors. They did not regard it suitable for themselves, so Cook brought British flag and Australia turned out to be Great Britain’s colony.

For most of the people Sydney´s symbol is Opera Theatre and everybody recognizes it from the pictures. It is a unique and attractive building. Opera theatre´s architect was a Danish, who first visited Australia after winning the architectural contest.  Building cost much more than at first calculated and caused many emotional discussions, but the end result is superb.

Sydney is not only Opera Theatre. Beside the theatre there is a grand bridge connecting northern and southern parts of the city. The dots on the bridge are people moving up on the watchtower.

The city lives 24/7 and there are lots of tourists always in Sydney. Sydney has a wonderful panorama, which can be viewed from many different angles.

They kept repeating to the tourists, which side you must first look, when you are starting to cross the street. As an experienced driver in Australia I know all that, but as a pedestrian the remanding was alright to me. Office employees differ from the usual people in the city – they always carry very important papers under the arm plus have a picture with a workers name on the chest. That gives them an opportunity to go in to the places other people can´t. The clerks on the picture were only to estimate some object´s “health” and after half an hour left being very satisfied.

Sidney´s airport is in the southern part. Leaving Sidney I saw an interesting view of 3 in 1!

…and a little more:

So far I have not wrote about the aborigines. I had not much information before I came here, so my visions are strictly based on what I saw. I heard that aborigine´s DNA is similar to Hindu and probably came ca 60 000 years ago. They really differ from other races (looking how they look like and their habits as well). Europeans tried to put aborigines behave and live like they do. Maybe on other continents it somehow worked, but not in here! White men should have come here maybe couple of thousand years later! Europeans tried to put on the pants to aborigines too earlier, they skipped one developing period, I think. Integrating them has not been successful. I did not make any pictures of aborigine lying in the gutter drunk and healthy young man begging. I saw lots of aborigines in the same condition. I did not saw any aborigine working, but I hope there are plenty of them! Even street aborigine musicians where managed (read: sold) by a white guy.

The government of Australia offers many favors to the aborigines. Prime minister has officially apologized from them and now they think it is all done.

Natives´ problems are not over and practically I do not see how it will be solved. If I knew I would drive to Canberra right away and fix this thing! So – I don´t know the solution  and therefore just keep on driving…

Sydney,

11th February