Davin Reporting:
Today we’re going to another historical site on an island– this time Fort Denison. Fort Denison was once a natural island, but is now entirely covered by the fort. The only way to reach the fort is by ferry, but the cost of the Captain Cook ferry is included in the cost of the fort’s guided tour– you can’t get to the tour without taking the ferry! You can just stop by the island at any time for slightly less cost if you don’t want the guided tour (at least when a ferry runs there), but it’s better to book a tour so you can view the inside of the fort’s tower.
Back before the fort was built it was known as “Pinchgut Island” possibly because of its original use as a punishment island for convicts. Pinchgut is also a nautical term for a narrow shipping channel. Convicts who committed crimes would be marooned on Pinchgut and fed only bread and water, which was only delivered weekly, resulting in their guts being pinched. Once a “gaol” was built on the mainland, Pinchgut stopped being used for convict punishment.
In1839, a few American warships showed up in Sydney harbor overnight, which panicked the government since apparently no one had seen them sail in. As a result, convict labor was used to level the island into a gun platform. This work was grueling, and apparently a work sentence on Pinchgut was more feared than being placed in solitary confinement, or forced to work on the treadmill.
In the 1850s, a fort and tower were built with paid labor as protection against invasion by the Russians, who were fighting the U.K. in the Crimean War. When this fort was complete, the island was renamed Fort Denison in honor of the Governor General of the time Sir William Denison.
Now, getting to our actual tour of the island. We were shown down into the tower’s basement where the gun powder was kept. Over time the powder kegs left rings in the soft sandstone. Also, the sandstone used to build this tower was so weak that it is constantly disintegrating. The steps have to be swept every day to remove the sand that constantly collects on them!
Unfortunately, the guide we had was a bit of an odd person, and he talked way too quietly– more like mumbling. Despite our best efforts, we could not understand at least half of what he said. At first I thought we might be having trouble mostly due to his accent, but it gradually became clear that no one else could hear him either! At this point I’ve come to realize that there are definite skills involved in being a guide: just being able to remember the facts is not enough, you need to be able to enunciate and speak loudly enough that people can actually understand you!
Next we traveled up to the top of the tower. It seems the staircase in the tower was designed backwards (one of the few things we were able to hear). Normally a tower’s staircase has a curve to benefit the defenders, as most people are right handed, but this staircase curved the wrong way, giving the advantage to right handed attackers. I guess that was another flaw... along with building it out of sand.
At the top of the tower were three large cannons that were too large to remove, and that is the only reason they are still in the room. (For a reason I no longer recall, at one point in history the government decided to remove all of the cannons from the island.) The cannons were fairly impressive, but I felt the functionality of the tower was somewhat in doubt, as the cannons could only fire in three directions, without much room for adjustment. I believe the original fort had more cannons lining the walls, which probably would have been of more use. That was the end of the tour, which wasn’t totally clear thanks to our guide, but everyone seemed to be happy to be done with it! The good thing was being able to take in the view from the top of the tower, and get some good photographs. We took one of us with the Queen Elizabeth anchored in the background.
The next event was the one o’clock firing of the “time gun” (a cannon), which apparently was done every day since the time gun was moved to the fort in 1906, and continued until 1942 when the Army occupied the fort during WW2. In 1986, the one o’clock firing of the time gun was brought back as a tradition but using modern electrical charges. The firing was about what you’d expect: a fairly loud bang and a little smoke.
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| Fire! |
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| D has always been good at guessing the range for firing cannons! (Warhammer trained him well!) |
After leaving Fort Denison by ferry, we headed back to Circular Quay and ate our leftover meat pies from yesterday before walking to the Sydney Museum. This was the last of the four museums in our multiple museum pass, and it honestly seemed to have a lot of overlap with the information in the Hyde Park Barracks Museum.
There were a few small wooden models of the original fleet of ships sent to Sydney (no pictures allowed, unfortunately), with signs detailing their specifications and what ultimately became of them. A lot of the ships were second rate vessels: old, and many were considered to “sail poorly”. There was also a model of the original governor’s mansion (not the one we were able to tour on our first day in Sydney) with signs detailing how it changed over time, and a display of trade goods from around the world. This original governor’s mansion no longer exists, but the Sydney Museum is built on the location where it once stood.
Upstairs there was a large display detailing various aspects of the history of Sydney and how it changed over time. It seemed there was some rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne going back to the original confederation of the country. As part of their agreement to join the union, Melbourne insisted that the capital had to be at least 100 miles from Sydney, which is why it is where it is in Canberra! Melbourne managed to snag the Summer Olympics in 1956 but in more recent decades Sydney seems to have achieved primacy (or at least so their self-named museum would have you believe).
Having finished seeing all the museums on our museum pass, let me take a moment to summarize my thoughts on the experience. I would definitely recommend viewing the Hyde Park Barracks museum if you come to Sydney, as it provides a good overview of the historical roots of the city. As for the rest of the museums, I think they are worth a look provided you are interested in historical museums. If that’s not the case, or you are pressed for time, then I’d say just go to Hyde Park Barracks with a single entry ticket and skip the rest.
The final stop for the day was the Sydney branch of Madame Taussauds. For those who don’t know, Madame Taussaud made a name for herself in the 1830s by coming up with a technique to create lifelike wax statues of people. Today there are various wax museums around the world bearing her name, with the original being in London.
The first thing I noticed about the Sydney Madame Taussauds was that the cost was about the same as that in London, at least in terms of currency units. It’s just that this one was priced in AUD ($0.73 USD), while the one in London was priced in GBP ($1.55 USD), making the one in Britain defacto twice as expensive. I think this differential is probably warranted because the Sydney museum was not as impressive as I recall the one in London being– granted it has been half a decade since I’ve seen it.
All the same, I think the Sydney location was worth a visit, simply because it had some local Australian personalities. Among others, we saw Captain Cook, Ned Kelly and Steve Irwin, as well as various Australian athletes. Of course, there were all the standard international movie stars, heads of state, and pop stars, as well.
However, one statue that really stood out to me was of Yao Ming. The man is insanely tall! I am used to towering over most people, but next to him I looked like a midget. With that being said, I actually feel bad for people who are that tall. The only good thing that can really come out of it is if you can make millions playing basketball. Everything else about it is just a negative.
Even at 6'4", I’ve come to appreciate that the world is designed for people who are generally shorter than I am. It’s not uncommon when traveling for me to have to sleep diagonally in beds at hotels, because they are just too short– even the beds on the cruise ship are too short! Seats in buses and vans are placed too close together, so I can barely fit in them. Several times on this trip I’ve encountered situations where I literally could not fit in a seat because my knees would not only hit the back of the seat in front of me, they would have had to push the seat in front of me forward several inches just to get them to fit at all! (Luckily I was given the front seat in the van where this happened, and I was able to get the one center seat that exists at the back of the buses that had this problem!)
If you add another foot or two on top of my height, you end up with a serious disability! Someone Yao Ming’s height could not sleep in a cruise ship bed without having his feet stick two feet off the end. He couldn’t stand up straight in our cabin because the ceiling is too low! I doubt he could even fit into a seat on a bus. It would just be terrible! Hopefully he makes enough in his basketball career to make up for some of those problems, but anyone out there who is the same size as he is but less athletic is just screwed!
Finally, we returned to our hotel room. On the way we took pictures of the Queen Elizabeth, which is currently anchored out at the Athol Buoy. The P.&O. Aurora is currently at the cruise terminal, and both it and the QE are too big to fit beneath the Harbour Bridge. So, tomorrow they will swap positions, giving the QE a chance to load and unload passengers– like us!
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