The art of the quick getaway

As the ships of the First Fleet swung at anchor in Sydney Cover in January 1788, the nature of the new colony was rapidly being formed. The peninsula to the west of the cove, ran steeply down to the water’s edge and was heavily cragged with rock formations. This area was allocated to the convicts and their immediate military overseers. The eastern shore and the area around the head of the cove - cloven by the muddy entrance of a small stream - were commandeered by the senior military and the administrators of the fledgling colony.

The rocks rapidly took on the character of its new inhabitants. Stowed on the eleven ships of the fleet were close to 1500 persons, including 550 male convicts and 190 female convicts. They had been sentenced to transportation for either 7 years or life, but the difference, once here, was marginal. And their crimes?

Mary Allen, 28, Stealing clothing to the value of 12/-
John Arscott, 20, stealing tobacco to the value of 70/-
James Bird, 38, stealing bags of saltpetre to the value of 65/-
William Brewer, 34, stealing a sheep worth 20/-

The differences between the convicts, the free settlers and the marines was more apparent than real. They were mostly poor, they were mostly working class. Many were drunkards and lechers.

The topography of The Rocks leant itself to being rend by narrow winding laneways, perfect for the quick getaway, up over a fence, down through a drain, and bob’s yer uncle.


I am down the South Coast, swimming and walking at Merry Beach, then to the Four Winds Music Festival at Bermagui. I return late Monday.

Paradise found

Weigall Field, Neild Avenue, Rushcutters Bay

Australia is a very egalitarian society and, wherever even IMpossible, we come at things as would a common-Joe. To us this flower is a Bird of Paradise, even though in the deep recesses of our garden shed, the guide might hautily index Strelitzia Reginae.

With its orange petals and blue tongue, the genus was named in honour of a woman from Strelitz in Germany who married George III of England. The name was chosen by another common-joe, Sir Joseph Banks, who was the Director of the Kew Gardens at the time.

The Bird of Paradise, although native to South Africa, is common to parklands and road-side plantings around Sydney. It is large, colourful and requires little water. Perfect!

The value of the aimless wander

Begg Lane & Perry Lane in Paddington

Deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls

Jacaranda trees, although supposedly native to Central and South America, are grown extensively in sub-tropical areas of the world. In Australia, there are extensive plantings in Brisbane and in Grafton on the far north coast of the state of NSW. In Sydney, there are extensive plantings over the North Shore and in the Eastern Suburbs.

My first item this season on this delightful tree was posted on my home and garden blog, Dolwendee.

When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls And the stars begin to twinkle in the sky In the mist of a memory you wander back to me Breathing my name with a sigh.

Pity the poor farmers ...

We had been warned to expect winds in excess of 100kms per hour, so when the windows started to rattle and doors to bang I knew that the spring pollen would be on the wing and that, being an asthmatic, my early morning walk was probably not a wise move.

However, the eerie glow when I opened the blinds at 5:30 took the wind out of my sails. The sky was pink! Within seconds, I was trying to cough my lungs up onto the pavers, so beat a hasty retreat. My daughter called to check on my stupidity levels as she huffed her way to the station across town.

These images were taken at the front of my cottage on the way to and from work. Have a look at the photograph that I have added to Tuesday's post.

Old'n'mucky lane in Glebe

Tooday I am moving house - keep me in your thoughts. I am sure there will be a modicum of cursing and cussing. Together with bruises and ricked backs.


I am moving from the inner-city working class suburb of Waterloo to the even more inner-city working class suburb of Glebe. These images were made last week in the laneways around my new abode: I adore old and rickety and rusty. This move was meant to be!


One of my first jobbies will be to remake this image of the gate latch: I am annoyed with myself as the concept was great. I just over-reached ... drats.

Skywatch - antithesis

Check out other Skywatchers around the world.

Skywatch - Both sides now

In front: sun setting behind the Harbour Bridge [F5.6, 1/1250, ISO400, 208mm]

Rows and flows of angel hair And ice-cream castles in the air And feather canyons ev'rywhere I've looked at clouds that way. But now they only block the sun They rain and snow on ev'ryone So many things I would have done But clouds got in my way. I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's clouds illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all. ... Lyrics by Joni Mitchell ...

Behind: sunset echoes over Fort Denison, the harbour and the ridge down to South Head [F5.6, 1/160, ISO400, 220mm]

Check out other Skywatchers around the world.

The curve

With apologies to Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a city in possession of a good harbour, must be in want of an icon. In this city, there is an immense affection for the bridge. The Bridge. The Opera House is an architectural wonder; it is beautiful; it graces its location. But we don't have a heart-felt and abiding affection for it. We do for the bridge. I do ...

This is the curve of the northern abutment taken from the Kirribilli or eastern side. I had my back to the opera house - literally. Beside the photograph is a 1928-29 painting by Grace Cossington-Smith who - I feel certain - would have understood inately my feelings about the "coat-hanger" - the old girl. Cossington-Smith died in 1984 after 92 years of spinsterhood on the North Shore of Sydney in the suburb of Turramurra. The style you see here is typical of her work. Walking through a gallery of her canvases, my head is flooded by the richness of a Bach 'cello suite - say, either of the Minors - or even Brahms' Piano Trio in C minor. She is definitely a Minor: full of such melancoly and loss that she sweeps up with a riot of geometry and colour.

Ferris nights

Ferris Wheel, Darling Harbour, City

Beauty deepens with age

Both blooms disturbed in nooks'n'crannies on campus

Camelias and gardenias are reminiscent of Bette Davis and Katherine Hepburn:

they do not go gently into any good night.

Vividly Sydney

Vivid is a new festival of music, light and ideas which runs from 26 May to 14 June around the iconic foreshores of Sydney Cove. It encompasses Smart Lights, Creative Sydney, Luminous and Fire Water. These photographs cover the Smart Lights theme.


The festival drew massive crowds: the precinct was packed this evening as we wandered around. A new festival over a long weekend at the start of Winter is most welcome. Hopefully, this is a festival that learns as it goes along. It will be a massive event on the calendar once it is bedded down.

Phosphoric thread of life

Side path, St James Anglican Church, Cudgegong St, Rylstone, NSW

Ker-chink!

Hard to credit, I know, after all the pubs I have featured of late, but this is the dregs of an OJ. All right! All right! It was TAKEN in a pub ...

F6.3, 1/800, ISO 200, 55mm

So not reconciled yet brudder

In 1967 a referendum attempted to repeal Section 127 of our Constitution which precluded the Commonwealth Government from passing laws affecting the Aboriginal peoples of Australia; specifically excluded them - "except the Aboriginal people in any state". It was so deliberate ... bastards ...

Pressure had been building for this change since Federation in 1901 but was hurried along by: the First Day of Mourning in 1938 - more symbolic than anything; the repeal of the Commonwealth Electoral Act in 1962 thereby giving Aborigines the right to vote; and, the Wave Hill strike by the Gurindji people in 1966 together with their land rights claim. The 1967 Referendum was passed by an overwhelming 90% of the population. Although I was 19 at that time, the voting age was 21 until changed by the Whitlam Labor government in March 1973. Bastards ... not Whitlam ... the other lot.

Each year Reconciliation Week is held between 27 May and 3 June to commemorate this milestone and another equally ground-breaking event.


3 June is the anniversary of the High Court’s handing down in 1992 of the judgement made on the Mabo case, in which Eddie Mabo argued that Murray Islanders’ rights to their land were not extinguished by the annexation of the islands by the State of Queensland. The Murray Islands are a tiny speck on the map at the tip of Cape York. The Court agreed and ‘terra nulius’ – the idea that the land belonged to noone before the arrival of the British – was abandoned and discussion ensued around the concept of native title.


Neither of these is to be confused with Sorry Day which commemorates the act of apology undertaken by the Rudd Government in February 2008 as an act of contrition to the Stolen Generation in the wake of the Bringing them Home report.

So why the sea of multi-coloured hands?

The Sea of Hands is Australia's largest public art installation and symbolises support for Native Title and Reconciliation. The Sea of Hands was created in 1997 as a physical representation of the Citizen's Statement on Native Title. The hands are in the colours of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander' flags.

I put my hand up - did you?

Outside in

Established in 1855 in the legal precinct downtown, the Sydney Law School moved into its new home on main campus at the end of April. From the hustle and bustle of Phillip Street, adjacent to the Supreme Court, and within reach of Wentworth Court, Selbourne Chambers, Wigram Chambers and Barristers' Court, it now resides in splendid modernity at the top of Petersham Hill, aka Camperdown Campus and within swearing distance of the sandstone glory that is The Main Quadrangle.

Although The Law Library is underground, it is connected to the outside world by this glorious structure which I gather is called the Turnbull Reading Room: in reality nowt but a window, albeit fantastical. The image above is taken from the inside looking up: a glorious shaft of natural light. The image below shows the structure against the bulwark of the 9 floors of Fisher Library. The geometry of lines takes ones breath away.

When jasmine last on the back-fence bloom'd

Tradesman's Lane, Glebe

The paper-fragile waste of shawl draped her shoulder with thin warmth Milky blue eyes probed his face For denial of her corroding fabric. For Lesley

Lavender Bay (1)

On the wall of my father's nursing home is a photograph - dated 1910 - of Lavender Bay showing boating sheds and gentlemen's baths. He asked if I knew where LB was: thirty minutes later, much to his delight, we were there.

Lavender Bay is named after George Lavender who was boatswain on the convict hulk, The Phoenix, which was moored here from 1825 to 1837 as a prison ship. This bay joins Milson's Point (the northern pylon of the Bridge) and Blue's Point. Lavender married one of Billy Blue's daughters - Susannah. Billy Blue was a Jamaican convict and ferryman after whom Blues Point was named. Clark Park teems with the eponymous flower.

Even the shoreline has changed since this photograph was taken some time prior to 1875, looking from the tip of Milson's Point into Lavender Bay with the Anglican Christ Church (established 1868) perched part-way up the rise.

For your Easter bonnet

Corner terrace, Baptist Street, Redfern

Field of dreams

Redfern Oval, home ground of the South Sydney Rabbitohs