Sydney - Day 8 - An astronomical number of stairs

Today we were going to head back into town.  The Sydney Observatory, Nicholson Museum and some shopping in town and a walk across the Harbour Bridge for good measure.  We even got to a couple of them.

So back on the train.  Into Wynyard station and heading back north towards Sydney Observatory near the south end of the Harbour Bridge. Again this was supposed to only be about an hour visit.  Little did we know.  The observatory is on a hill, so up about 50 stairs.

I think that this observatory is even more interesting than that at Siding Springs.  Siding Springs is impressive, this is interesting and exciting. The place is chock full of history.  Did you know that one Sir Thomas Brisbane became the governor of New South Wales because he wanted to do astronomy there and was instrumental in setting the basis for Australia to be one of the world leaders in astronomy. Most of the instruments house in the observatory are designed to facilitate measuring time and recording accurately the locations of individual stars to allow for their use in accurate navigation.  One of the transit telescopes, designed to only move north - south in the sky was designed with a slot in the roof, the hatches were opened by way of long poles attached to them.

The kids had a great time, especially when they found that there was a room with a table full of Lego.

Whilst at the observatory Kerrie found that the Nicholson Museum was closed on Saturday, so we decided to walk over to the north side of the Harbour Bridge.  First we had to find out how to get to the bridge.  On the way we noticed the steeple of an old church. We just had to have a look so down some more stairs.

The Garrison Church is a beautiful building, built in the early days of the colony.  The stain glass windows are amazing.

So back up those stairs and on to more stairs to get to the deck of the bridge.

Now I had forgotten that Kerrie has a bit of a thing about heights.  This was going to be interesting.

It was windy, cold, noisy and an amazing view.  Add to that for Kerrie fairly scary, especially when somebody pointed out the how much the deck moved when the cars and trucks rolled over it.

At the north end of the bridge we found our way down (more stairs) to the street level, to find that there was a market with everything including a range of street food.  What more could you ask for (except maybe less stairs).  I enjoyed a Greek Chicken pancake thing, the kids had Indian and kerrie of course found a Japanese outlet that actually had yoki niku and economyyaki.

Up more stairs to the station and we headed back into town to go to the Queen Victoria Building and some shopping.