The plan was to go to Central and then catch the light rail (tram for those from Melbourne) to the Powerhouse Museum.
We got to Central and found our way out of the labyrinthine exit tunnels. The tram was going to be 20 minutes so we decided to walk the Powerhouse.
We found our way across to the entrance to China Town. Here was one of the old monorail (long defunct) stations. Up the stairs and onto a walkway to the Power House Museum. We had lunch in the Museum cafe and headed on in.
The plan was to spend a few hours at the Powerhouse then move on to the Maritime Museum. Well you know what plans are like.
The Powerhouse Museum is an amazing place. I would guess that most people could find something here to interest them if they were to give it a chance.
There are four levels of the Museum. We started on the first floor, and almost did not escape...
The first floor covers everything from space flight to computing, chemistry and radiation.
The first thing I noticed was the "Mars Yard". An area designed to emulate the terrain on Mars. This area is used by university students to test robots and methods of moving around the terrain. Whilst we were there a couple of students were working with a couple of wheeled robots, without much success. One of the robots was long legged, with wheels at the end of the legs. He seemed to be having some difficulty getting the robot to coordinate all the wheels to be pointing in the same direction and managed to pull the tyre of one of the wheels a couple of times when it was dragged sideways.
The computing area had some relics from the early days of computing, including a part of the Silliac computer, one of the very early valve machines built by the University of Sydney. This machine was so fast that it could do 13000 addition operations per second. It had about 1024 bytes of memory.
Tim spent quite some time looking at a computer running a very old style program. You entered your name and had a very simple conversation with the computer by answering questions. An early version of Siri? Just a bit more accurate.
At about this time we were called into the space flight hall to learn how a rocket was put together. An old German accented man gave a very comprehensive show and tell on what makes up a rocket. Tim and Sarah seem to enjoy it. Emily and Kerrie went off to travel to the International Space Station.
Other displays on the floor covered how chocolate was made (along with free samples), how to build fireworks and many others. The kids must have spent three hours on this floor alone.
Upstairs there were displays on the costumes from the movie Strictly Ballroom, jewellery and much else.
By this time it became obvious that we were not going to get to the Maritime Museum. The Powerhouse closed at 5pm which saw us being hustled out the door.
From here we decided to walk around to Darling Harbour proper. There are an amazing range of food and alcohol outlets along the shore here. Of course we had forgotten that it was Friday evening and it seemed that every worker in the city had migrated to Darling Harbour for after work drinks.
We found a brilliant water play park here and had no choice but to let the kids go and explore. Kerrie and I ducked off to grab a cache whilst the kids worked there way through the playground.
Working our way north and looking for a place for dinner we eventually found our way back to Wynyard station and decided to call it a day and get dinner back at the van.
Whilst on the train back North Ride it was decided that pizza was the ideal dinner, and I was dispatched back to the caravan park to get the car and pick up the others before diverting to the pizza shop. Long wait. Nice Pizza. Altogether a grate, though trying day.
We found our way across to the entrance to China Town. Here was one of the old monorail (long defunct) stations. Up the stairs and onto a walkway to the Power House Museum. We had lunch in the Museum cafe and headed on in.
The plan was to spend a few hours at the Powerhouse then move on to the Maritime Museum. Well you know what plans are like.
The Powerhouse Museum is an amazing place. I would guess that most people could find something here to interest them if they were to give it a chance.
There are four levels of the Museum. We started on the first floor, and almost did not escape...
The first floor covers everything from space flight to computing, chemistry and radiation.
The first thing I noticed was the "Mars Yard". An area designed to emulate the terrain on Mars. This area is used by university students to test robots and methods of moving around the terrain. Whilst we were there a couple of students were working with a couple of wheeled robots, without much success. One of the robots was long legged, with wheels at the end of the legs. He seemed to be having some difficulty getting the robot to coordinate all the wheels to be pointing in the same direction and managed to pull the tyre of one of the wheels a couple of times when it was dragged sideways.
The computing area had some relics from the early days of computing, including a part of the Silliac computer, one of the very early valve machines built by the University of Sydney. This machine was so fast that it could do 13000 addition operations per second. It had about 1024 bytes of memory.
Tim spent quite some time looking at a computer running a very old style program. You entered your name and had a very simple conversation with the computer by answering questions. An early version of Siri? Just a bit more accurate.
At about this time we were called into the space flight hall to learn how a rocket was put together. An old German accented man gave a very comprehensive show and tell on what makes up a rocket. Tim and Sarah seem to enjoy it. Emily and Kerrie went off to travel to the International Space Station.
Other displays on the floor covered how chocolate was made (along with free samples), how to build fireworks and many others. The kids must have spent three hours on this floor alone.
Upstairs there were displays on the costumes from the movie Strictly Ballroom, jewellery and much else.
By this time it became obvious that we were not going to get to the Maritime Museum. The Powerhouse closed at 5pm which saw us being hustled out the door.
From here we decided to walk around to Darling Harbour proper. There are an amazing range of food and alcohol outlets along the shore here. Of course we had forgotten that it was Friday evening and it seemed that every worker in the city had migrated to Darling Harbour for after work drinks.
We found a brilliant water play park here and had no choice but to let the kids go and explore. Kerrie and I ducked off to grab a cache whilst the kids worked there way through the playground.
Working our way north and looking for a place for dinner we eventually found our way back to Wynyard station and decided to call it a day and get dinner back at the van.
Whilst on the train back North Ride it was decided that pizza was the ideal dinner, and I was dispatched back to the caravan park to get the car and pick up the others before diverting to the pizza shop. Long wait. Nice Pizza. Altogether a grate, though trying day.
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