Sydney Harbour Bridge - see if you can spot Stephen HawkingI have had two interesting communications today. The first was from playwright Dave Windass at The Hull Truck Theatre Company. Hull Truck run a very occasional course with limited places for wannabe playwrights. I have been trying to get on the course for over a year, but they are very infrequent and not widely advertised. The next course begins in April and I would love to get a place. The problem, however, was missing two classes due to trips away from home. Dave has suggested that as long as I am willing to do the work normally undertaken in those weeks it should not bar me from applying. I have wasted no time in sending off said application together with 2 pages of my play script , Status - coming to a theatre near you once I've finished the bloody thing.
The second communication was a phone call from my former employer, offering me a 6 month contract to undertake some work for them. The pay is not bad and the money would be nice, especially after my trip down under. The trouble is I would have to work full time and start next week. As I see it this would revoke my cherished status as a middle aged gapper and transform me into a middle aged sell out. Not only would I not have time to attend to my play and my book, there wouldn't even be a book. I can hardly write about my adventures and then come to a bit that says -
' I had intended to do a lot of other interesting stuff but somebody waved money at me so you'll just have to imagine it. The End.'
It took all of 3 seconds to consider this kind offer and reject it. The dream lives on.
Okay then, let's get back to Sydney:
The Opera House was both disappointing and breathtaking in equal measure. I don’t know how I managed it, but when I searched the Opera House website for something to see during my visit I never noticed that La Traviata was being performed in one of the two main halls. Instead I booked to see a play called Optimism in the one of the small studios tucked away under the main auditoriums. Based on Voltaire’s Candide, the play was awful. It reached its lowest point at the end of the first half when a one armed man, dripping in mud sang 'I could be happy' as a dirge. Still jet lagged, I dozed off only to be awoken by a loud gunshot. I thought at first that I had been shot. You can only imagine my disappointment to discover that I hadn't and that I had lived to return for the second half. My own optimism that things could only get better proved unfounded.
Salvation came by way of the Opera House Tour the next day. In 1956 the New South Wales Government called an international design competition to create an opera house on the site of a derelict tram shed on Bennelong Point. Reputedly rescued from a pile of discarded submissions, Danish architect Jørn Utzon’s entry was the worthy winner. The building was meant to take 3 years to construct at a cost of $7m. But there was a problem. Utzon’s design was so radical that it pushed the envelope of engineering beyond its known limits. The design was eventually deemed impossible to create until Utzon himself came up with a visionary solution whereby the sails of the building were shaped so that collectively they would make up a sphere. Completion eventually took 16 years, during which time Utzon was sacked as architect, and the costs were over $100m.
Utzon, who received international architecture's highest honour, the Pritzker Prize, in 2003, died in November 2008, having never seen his greatest masterpiece.
Inside and out, the Sydney Opera House is a thing of immense beauty. Let me share one piece of insider information about it. The building, with its 10 sails, is not white but a slightly creamy beige. The colour comes from an exterior coating of ceramic tiles, 1,360,006 of them to be exact. And here’s the scoop - they are very similar to the ones in my kitchen.
I re-visit landmark number 2 on a day of parties and celebrations – Australia Day. 26th January 1788 was the day that Captain Arthur Philips landed with 11 convict ships from Great Britain at Sydney Cove and the settlement of this vast land by white people began. It’s not a day of celebration for everyone, with many of the Aboriginal population regarding it as invasion day.
I commence my own celebration by tackling one of the challenges on my list – to climb to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The climb is a very popular tourist attraction and the entrance to the building where the climb commences has pictures of the numerous celebrities that have taken the challenge – Michael Caine and his lovely missus, Jodi Foster, Prince Harry, Stephen Hawking, the list goes on.
Walking up the bridge is like being in a chain gang. All your personal property is taken away and climbers don grey jump suits, stripping down to underwear underneath to overcome the heat and 85% humidity. An ingenious system of wires, cogs and belts means you are tethered at all times and unlikely to disturb the 8 lanes of traffic below by dropping in on them.
The 134 metre high view from the top must be one of the best in the world, with the Opera House gleaming in the sunlight and, as this was Australia Day, the harbour was teeming with all manner of water craft, weaving in and out of each other. There was even one of those big fire ships that spray water everywhere. It was a good day to be a middle aged gapper.
So what was my lasting impression of Sydney? The tower, the aquarium, circular quay, the bridge, the Chinese Garden of Friendship, the Opera House? No. The bats. They're huge. Every evening at dusk they swoop over city like leather dinner plates. Hundreds of them.
Sydney is home to the Grey Headed Flying Fox, a type of fruit bat. They hang out at the Botanic Gardens during the day. The strange thing was that no one appeared to see them but me. I’d stand there, open mouthed, looking up muttering 'Big bats' and pointing to anyone who might be interested. But no one was.
The second communication was a phone call from my former employer, offering me a 6 month contract to undertake some work for them. The pay is not bad and the money would be nice, especially after my trip down under. The trouble is I would have to work full time and start next week. As I see it this would revoke my cherished status as a middle aged gapper and transform me into a middle aged sell out. Not only would I not have time to attend to my play and my book, there wouldn't even be a book. I can hardly write about my adventures and then come to a bit that says -
' I had intended to do a lot of other interesting stuff but somebody waved money at me so you'll just have to imagine it. The End.'
It took all of 3 seconds to consider this kind offer and reject it. The dream lives on.
Okay then, let's get back to Sydney:
The Opera House was both disappointing and breathtaking in equal measure. I don’t know how I managed it, but when I searched the Opera House website for something to see during my visit I never noticed that La Traviata was being performed in one of the two main halls. Instead I booked to see a play called Optimism in the one of the small studios tucked away under the main auditoriums. Based on Voltaire’s Candide, the play was awful. It reached its lowest point at the end of the first half when a one armed man, dripping in mud sang 'I could be happy' as a dirge. Still jet lagged, I dozed off only to be awoken by a loud gunshot. I thought at first that I had been shot. You can only imagine my disappointment to discover that I hadn't and that I had lived to return for the second half. My own optimism that things could only get better proved unfounded.
Salvation came by way of the Opera House Tour the next day. In 1956 the New South Wales Government called an international design competition to create an opera house on the site of a derelict tram shed on Bennelong Point. Reputedly rescued from a pile of discarded submissions, Danish architect Jørn Utzon’s entry was the worthy winner. The building was meant to take 3 years to construct at a cost of $7m. But there was a problem. Utzon’s design was so radical that it pushed the envelope of engineering beyond its known limits. The design was eventually deemed impossible to create until Utzon himself came up with a visionary solution whereby the sails of the building were shaped so that collectively they would make up a sphere. Completion eventually took 16 years, during which time Utzon was sacked as architect, and the costs were over $100m.
Utzon, who received international architecture's highest honour, the Pritzker Prize, in 2003, died in November 2008, having never seen his greatest masterpiece.
Inside and out, the Sydney Opera House is a thing of immense beauty. Let me share one piece of insider information about it. The building, with its 10 sails, is not white but a slightly creamy beige. The colour comes from an exterior coating of ceramic tiles, 1,360,006 of them to be exact. And here’s the scoop - they are very similar to the ones in my kitchen.
I re-visit landmark number 2 on a day of parties and celebrations – Australia Day. 26th January 1788 was the day that Captain Arthur Philips landed with 11 convict ships from Great Britain at Sydney Cove and the settlement of this vast land by white people began. It’s not a day of celebration for everyone, with many of the Aboriginal population regarding it as invasion day.
I commence my own celebration by tackling one of the challenges on my list – to climb to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The climb is a very popular tourist attraction and the entrance to the building where the climb commences has pictures of the numerous celebrities that have taken the challenge – Michael Caine and his lovely missus, Jodi Foster, Prince Harry, Stephen Hawking, the list goes on.
Walking up the bridge is like being in a chain gang. All your personal property is taken away and climbers don grey jump suits, stripping down to underwear underneath to overcome the heat and 85% humidity. An ingenious system of wires, cogs and belts means you are tethered at all times and unlikely to disturb the 8 lanes of traffic below by dropping in on them.
The 134 metre high view from the top must be one of the best in the world, with the Opera House gleaming in the sunlight and, as this was Australia Day, the harbour was teeming with all manner of water craft, weaving in and out of each other. There was even one of those big fire ships that spray water everywhere. It was a good day to be a middle aged gapper.
So what was my lasting impression of Sydney? The tower, the aquarium, circular quay, the bridge, the Chinese Garden of Friendship, the Opera House? No. The bats. They're huge. Every evening at dusk they swoop over city like leather dinner plates. Hundreds of them.
Sydney is home to the Grey Headed Flying Fox, a type of fruit bat. They hang out at the Botanic Gardens during the day. The strange thing was that no one appeared to see them but me. I’d stand there, open mouthed, looking up muttering 'Big bats' and pointing to anyone who might be interested. But no one was.
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