Day 5 in Sydney: St. Mary's Cathedral, Hyde Park Barracks, Botanical Gardens, Harbour Bridge and The Pearlfishers Opera

Happy 5th Anniversary to us! :0) Today we spent the day looking at some of the things closer around our hotel area. We walked over to St. Mary's Cathedral and looked inside a bit and took some pictures. I always love looking at buildings like this, the architecture is just amazing! St. Mary's church was the first land grant to the Catholic church in Australia. Catholics arrived early on, but mass was prohibited for a while because they thought it might provoke civil strife among Irish catholics. 

We thought this was funny because it looks like this kid has an iPad!!!

Lands Department Building

We then continued our walk to the Hyde Park Barracks Museum. The Hyde Park Barracks were built to house convicts while they served out their sentence in Sydney. Before the Hyde Barracks were built, convicts were responsible for their own housing after a long day of work, so the barracks were welcomed I'm sure by them. A little while later, the barracks housed Irish orphan girls that were sent over to help balance out the man to woman ratio in Sydney. Eventually it housed other women immigrants and then was turned into government offices before converted to a museum. We were lucky because today they were doing an extra exhibition called Red Coats vs. Convicts. They had extra things set up in the courtyard area demonstrating jobs convicts did and other ways of life such as cooking and medicine. They also had gun demonstrations, dancing from that time period and little bands! It was really neat, everyone was also dressed in age appropriate attire.

Tools and Clothing

Blacksmith

This man was making table legs. He would push the peddle, which would rotate the wood by the rope attached to the large branch, and then he would use his tool to smooth out the wood and sculpt it into the table legs you see on the stools there.

We stood at the surgery both for probably 10-15 minutes talking to the to guys here. They told us what each of these surgical tools were used for and how the procedures were done. The blade on the bottom left was used for amputations. The doctor would cut away the flesh in a circular manner and then use the larger saw to the upper right to cut through the bone. They then would use the curved hooks on the top right hand of the box to pull out the arteries and veins and tie them off with string or cat guts. To the cat guts I said what?!?! and the guy responded, "Well what else are they good for??" lol. Once they tied off the major vessels, they pulled the skin flap back over and stitched them up. Of course all of this was done without anesthetics. The T-shaped tool on the left side of the bottom section was used to relieve swelling on the skull when people had a fracture or bleeding on the brain. They tapped it into the fracture and then rotated it to carve out a hole. Then the person would lean over and the fluid would pour off. Again, the person was awake the whole time! It was just incredible to think about people undergoing procedures like this awake and fully aware of what was going on. The men here told us that this procedure of relieving fluid like that has been around for ages, the Greeks and Romans and other ancient cultures used it, and they have also found other older human remains that had the same marks from the procedure on the skull.

Our surgical tools teachers! They said we should be thankful that they left the "giving birth" tools at home haha... 

We thought this was so interesting! This box was representing the boxes that the Irish orphan girls received when they arrived to Sydney, and this one had the name Hannah Campbell on it!

Where the convicts slept.

I'm a convict sleeping in my hammock!

This was the Sydney Hospital. Apparently Florence Nightingale approved the design of the nurses' wing built in 1867.

Parliament House (Used to be part of the hospital)

State Library of NSW

After walking down Macquarie Street and looking at some of the buildings, we visited the Royal Botanical Gardens. We walked around looking at the different sections of plants, and what we realized is that this "garden" seemed more like a forest or a garden of trees and shrubs. There weren't nearly as many flowers as I was expecting, which possible could have been because this is their winter time and many of the flowers could have just been out of season. At any rate, they have a lot of different cacti plants (succulents they called them), various eucalyptus trees and other interesting trees I'd never seen before. We grabbed a quick lunch at a cafe "kiosk", and then walked out to Macquarie's point to look at  the view.

Tropical Plants Exhibit

The is an Elephant Foot Tree! So cool!

They actually had plants for sale here! I would have loved to bring one home, but that wouldn't do well in customs. :0) And it would have had to ride on the plane, which also wouldn't happen haha.

Shame on you Jacob! Don't touch that!

Some of the cacti I was talking about in the Succulents garden.

Macquarie's Wall - built to separate the convicts area from the "respectable" part of the city. This is the only section still standing today.

The wishing tree :0)

Chicken Salad :0) The little guy at this kiosk was so nice! He even exchanged some money for us!

Rose Garden - One of the only flower we saw today haha

Conservatorium of Music

You know me, if I have a chance to feed animals I will. I saved some crust for lunch for these little guys. They were like little doggies begging for food! haha, so silly

The view at Macquarie's Point

Battle Ships docked at the wharf

Obviously we liked this view :0) It was probably on of the best in the city.

We thought this was funny, some people are getting married! Jo you should have done this! :0)

Fort Denison - used to house convicts confined here as a punishment. They received meager rations of food here and one man, Francis Morgan, was hung here by chains. His body was left hanging for about three years as a warning to other convicts.

After walking around Macquarie's Point, we took the walkway around the the Sydney Opera House to pick up our tickets for that night.

Yay!!!

Some guys playing didgeridoos at Circular Quay and their token aboriginal dancer...

After picking up our tickets, we decided to walk around and walk across the Harbour Bridge a little bit. We didn't walk all the way across, but we did walk about half way and again enjoyed the views. 

This list was dedicated to people who died while working on the bridge, and we found a J. Campbell listed!

Walking across the bridge :0)

Another place to do a lock for your love. :0)

We then walked back to the subway and went back to our hotel room to rest for a few minutes and then get ready for dinner and the opera. We found the restaurants at the Campbell storehouses and made online reservations with them for tonight. It was absolutely perfect! They seated us on the edge of their seating so we had the perfect view of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. The food was delicious and the staff was very nice. That is one thing I have to say, we have met a lot of really nice people here who are ready to tell you about Sydney and answer your questions. It has been super easy getting around and figuring things out because everyone is so nice and accommodating.

Our views

Appetizer! Seriously, their tomatoes are soooo yummy here! They have a sweeter taste it seems and are so flavorful.

I got the Calamarata, which was a seafood pasta with calamari and rings. It was yummy!

Jacob got a twice cooked pork belly, which was really tasty as well.

On our way to the opera!

Inside the opera house... sneaky pictures :0)

The Pearlfishers turned out to be a very nice opera, and the three main characters had great voices. We were also very impressed by the orchestra, they were very good! So needless to say, we have had a great day and enjoyed celebrating. We did a lot more than we originally had planned, but really if you know how my family travels, you shouldn't be surprised about that haha. Hope you enjoyed the post!!