In my defense, the forecast called for 69 degrees and sunny, at least when we checked this morning at 6:45 am, when we got up. We were smart enough to layer up, including coats, for breakfast, since it does get cold in the mornings. Today we went down to Victoria St, which is parallel to the street our hotel is on, for breakfast at Latteria. It’s almost literally a hole in the wall --- an extremely narrow cafe with metal tables that fold up against one wall for extra room and refrigerators stacked up to the ceiling on the other wall, with a narrow walkway between. It’s a real locals’ place, and for good reason: The coffee is awesome, and they have a great selection of pastries and savory things. We had one of each, to whit, a spinach/tomato/cheese panini and a toasted slice of banana bread. Then we dropped our coats off at the hotel room for the day, and Michael, in an act of supreme optimism, decided not to take his regular glasses at all, just his sunglasses. (The good news about that one is that I now get to say “I told you so.” Repeatedly.)
Okay, so it wasn’t all that cold --- maybe in the low- to mid-50s or so --- but it was rather breezy and definitely not sunny at all. Luckily, the day’s itinerary included lots of walking, so we were able to keep pretty warm anyway. We went down to the Royal Botanic Gardens, which extend from the center of the city out into the harbor, and took a lovely walk around, including an hour and a half walking tour from a great guide (Toni), who showed us around the native flora and fauna in the park. The flora part included mostly native plants, like eucalyptus trees (did you know there were over 800 species?), paper-bark trees, various varieties of wattles (the national plant), a species of native spinach, fig trees, macadamia trees (nope, they’re not native to Hawaii), and a huge-trunked bottle tree that stores water like a cactus. By far the coolest specimen was the Wollemi pine, which was around in the time of the dinosaurs and known from fossils. It was thought to be extinct for about 2 million years until a hiker found a stand of them in Wollemi valley about ten years ago. There’s been an aggressive effort to replant them all over the country, and they seem to be taking to it rather well. Last time we were here, there were cages around all of the pines in the gardens to prevent people from stealing them because they were so rare. But now they’ve been released from their captivity, and you can even buy seedlings at the gift shop if you want to have a “dinosaur tree” in your own backyard.
There were also plenty of non-native plants, including a fantastic begonia garden donated by a Japanese begonia fanatic (really), and many of the plants that the original British settlers brought along, most of which failed miserably. I suppose one can’t really blame them for failing to do research about the climate and growing conditions before they arrived, but still, they might have known better. They brought with them all the stuff that they thought they’d need: wheat, barley, a few types of chard, citrus trees, olive trees, tobacco, and coffee. The convicts couldn’t get by without their smoke and caffeine, apparently. The irony is that the tobacco and coffee grew rather well, but the grain crops were a miserable failure. The soil around Sydney is very poor, and to make matters worse, the settlers arrived in the middle of the summer, which is a bad time for planting anything. Also, as soon as the first shoots came up, the wallabies and possums ate the whole stock. The Gardens has a pair of plant beds, one with the native stuff and one with the stuff that the Brits brought, and our guide told us that they can barely manage to get the wheat to grow even with regular watering and fertilization. At that rate, it’s really a wonder that the Brits ever managed to colonize anything.
Fun flora fact of the day: The name eucalyptus comes from the Greek for “well-covered,” and refers to the way that its flowers grow. Rather than coming in buds that open, like most tree flowers, eucalyptus flowers have a hard covering over the top that pops off to reveal the flower. So now you know.
As for the fauna....those of you who tuned in for my last Australia updates three years ago will no doubt remember the flying foxes, gigantic fruit bats that nest in the botanical gardens in a colony of 10,000 strong (up to 20,000 in the summer). From walking around the Gardens, it’s hard to believe that they’re an endangered species, but they are --- they should be living in more tropical climates, but the Australian rainforest is being cut down, and they’re quite happy in Sydney. Unfortunately, they’re destroying the trees that they nest in; they tend to rip the bark and leaves off with their claws when they perch upside down. However, they are awesome. And big: probably about the size of a small house cat, but with wings. And quite loud too: you can hear them all over the park. We took some video, which I’ll try to post soon. The rest of the fauna mostly included birds of various types, such as the cockatoos, which were very nice about posing for pictures, and the afore-mentioned ibises. And some truly huge golden orb spiders, which I wouldn’t ordinarily call “fauna” except that they were fuzzy. Ew.
After our Gardens tour we caught the ferry across the harbor to Manly, a very posh district located between the harbor and the ocean. We got lunch at a Thai stand inside the Manly ferry terminal and then took a walk along the beach on the ocean side. To our absolute amazement, about halfway along our walk we ran into Michael’s graduate advisor (Peter Godfrey-Smith, known as PGS) having lunch with his wife (Jane) at a seaside cafe. He now lives in Manly, which we knew, but we hadn’t exactly expected to find him directly in our path! So we stopped and chatted a bit. PGS was spending the day going scuba diving in Manly cove in search of octopi, and Jane is rehearsing for a performance of two Baroque operas at the Sydney Opera House this week --- she’s a singer and has a role in the chorus. We’ll try to see if we can stop by to see her, but the tickets are, according to PGS, “bloody expensive.” Maybe there will be a few left at rush?
As we were coming back from our walk along the ocean beach, at little past 3:00, the sun finally came out. It made up for its lack of appearance the rest of the day by turning the rest of afternoon into a spectacular success. The light glinting off the water and the clear air and drifting clouds made for a perfect backdrop to the trees lining the harbor. The water was so absolutely clear we could see the rocks on the bottom and even some fish swimming lazily around. I insisted on getting hot chocolate from Max Brenner (tagline: “chocolate by the bald man” --- not as good as Michel Cluizel, but still decent), and we sat outside drinking it and swinging our feet off the pier. I think Michael would have preferred a beer or a glass of wine, but I’m still not feeling entirely adjusted to the time and wanted to skip the alcohol. Next time, sweetie --- promise.
By this time it was getting dark already (stupid winter) so we headed back to the hotel to rest up our tired feet a bit. Then we went down to Oxford Street, which in London is a shopping district but which here is the gayborhood. We weren’t all that hungry (probably something to do with the fact that our bodies thought it was 5 am), so we stopped at a little Vietnamese place for soup and an appetizer to split. And now it’s an easy night in the hotel, which I feel that we’ve earned after all that walking. Breakfast tomorrow will be self-catered --- we bought some provisions at a local grocery store so we don’t have to eat out every meal. After that, the plan for tomorrow is to take the train out to the Blue Mountains, a national park about two hours to the west of Sydney. Or maybe we’ll take a break from the walking and do something a little different. Stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment