The Barracks and the Museum

April 23
Wet and Cloudy

We arrived about a half-hour late, after a flight that was a little choppy at times. The pilot told us that he was battling headwinds all the way down, and that was the result of the delay. Looking at the flightpath -- one of the things you can do on the QANTAS 747s -- we could see that he made some course corrections, most likely to avoid the more intense storm activity.

The airport was a little nuts with the arrival of Fifty Cent, the Wiggles, and a woman who I think was the actress who played the female barber in the movie Barbershop. Fifty Cent had a police escort out of the building. Lots of paparazzi. I had never seen that in person before; it is very reminiscent of the way our guppies behave in the tank at home at feeding time. But, we eventually got to our coach, and the driver brought us straight away to the Y Hotel just off Hyde Park.

It has been raining here for 11 consecutive days. They have been living with a severe drought, sop they really need it. And we thus far have been able to dodge the raindrops. But it made the walk through Hyde Park less than spectacular. The weather should improve today and tomorrow.

Our visit to the Hyde Parks Barracks was very good, as usual. The Barracks was one of the first public buildings constructed in Sydney. Governor Macquarie, determined to create a true colony from the tent city around Port Jackson, had the convicts construct the Barracks so that they would have a proper building to live in. The conditions inside were appalling by modern standards, but no doubt an improvement over life in a small tent.

Our tour guide Sarah was engaging and informative; the students learned a lot. (or so I hope!) But they were pretty worn out from their flight and had few questions. I always learn something new from the tour guides, as each new one has something a little different to offer. Sarah spent a lot of time discussing the Convict architect Greenway, and interesting character. He was cheeky enough to insult Governor Macquarie's wife for some of her suggestions about her design of the Barracks.

The Barracks now sports a wing on the hulks, the floating prisons Britain used before and during the colonial times. I always thought that the hulks were just moored on the Thames somewhere, but they were distributed throughout the Empire, including three off the Australian coast. The museum has recreated some of the rooms on the hulks. It was dreadful. Twenty people crammed into a room the size of a dorm. Those confined on the hulks described it as worse than death.

In the afternoon, we went to the Australian Museum for our tour of the Aboriginal Exhibit. This is the season for a lot of 'school holidays' in which the school children visit museums and parklands. The museum was very loud and crowded, and we could tell that it was stressing out our tour guide Sheryl. But she, too, was very engaging and informative, and doing her best to keep a good humor while trying to talk to us over the din.
The exhibit presents Aboriginal spiritual beliefs, daily life, ongoing culture, and survival in the face of white conquest. Much of the exhibit is concerned with the Stolen Generation, those Aborigines who were taken from their families as children and sent away to native schools to learn white ways.
Turns out that Sheryl was almost a part of that. Her mother was Aboriginal but her father was white. She and her mother were not accepted by the father's family, and so her mother took her back to her home mission in outback New South Wales. But as a light-skinned Aborigine, she could very well have been a part of that episode in Australian history.
Sheryl's description of her mother reminded me of Ruth, the mother of author James McBride. You can read about Ruth in his book The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. Both women had large family's and, though dirt poor, saw to it that their children received the very best education possible. I gave Sheryl the title and suggested that she take a look at it.

For dinner, my colleague and I went to an Indian restaurant nearby, and had a very nice meal. I had beef curry, and Dale had Tandoori chicken. Very nice and reasonably priced.

Tomorrow: the Taronga Zoo and the Sydney Aquarium.