Green Park Hotel

A most atmospheric internal beer-garden sets this basic 1893 suburban pub apart from others. Along with the $5 glass of wine all weekend!


Whereas this pub is on the intersection of Victoria Street and Liverpool Street in Darlinghurst, Green Park itself is another 200m along Victoria Street and opposite St Vincents' Hospital. It is the park with this outstanding folly.

The little general before the battle

'Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.'

Alone in the autumn sunshine

Together in the autumn sunshine

Winter's afternoon in the park

As the shadows lengthened, a nip gathered in the air, and people gathered sweaters around them. Chatting people, walking people, sipping people, running people. People in pairs, people in families, people in teams.


All readying themselves for the homeward journey and the Sunday evening roast of lamb, with baked potatoes, baked pumpkin, steamed baby peas, and slivered carrot, with a gentle spray of mint picked fresh from the window-sill.

Sunday in my City - Chilling in autumnal warmth

The Paddington Reservoir Gardens are just up the hill from where I live. I meander through some higgledy-piggledy back streets, very narrow, very picturesque. As I plod up the street, I hear behind me the horn of an ocean liner as it progresses up the harbour to safe anchorage in Sydney Cove.


Bringing old industrial sites back into community use is an agreeable aspect of living in the inner city of Sydney. This park used to be part of the water supply of Sydney from about 1850 to about 1880. With neglect and the ravages of time, the site became unsave and was fenced off for many years. One of our top architectural firms used the remaining industrial fragments to entice the residents back into the space.

A coffee cart and mid-century jazz will do the rest.



A member of the Sunday in my City community.

A true romantic?

With the sun setting behind the skyscrapers, he lay in the Botanic Gardens, engrossed in his book. Tattooed upon his thigh, four verses of a poem ...

After much enlarging, and teasing of shapes, the second last line unlocks this:

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. Invictus by William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903)

The pondage system of Centennial Parklands

A black swan base over apex in Lily Pond

There are 13 parts to the Centennial Parklands pondage and drainage system:

Kippax Lake	Lachlan Swamps
Botany Wetlands	Model Yacht Pond
Fly Casting Pond	Musgrave Pond
One More Shot Pond	Willow Pond
Duck Pond	Randwick Pond
Lily Pond	Busby's Pond, and
Kensington Pond.

This drainage system covers just over 26 hectares, whereas Centennial Parklands (Centennial Park, Queens Park, and Moore Park) covers 330 hectares.

Top LtoR: Duck Pond, Fly Casting Pond; Bottom LtoR: Kippax Lake, Willow Pond

A member of the Thursday Thirteen community.

The DCP follows the LEP all managed by the CSPC

An aerial map of the Harold Park site including the tram sheds which are the red rectangles in the top RH corner of the red outlined area.

From the Lord Mayor's Media machine today, I received an email releasing the Community Consultation papers for the planning of the Harold Park site. If you recall, last week I did a series on the area, including the canal, the harness racing track, the lite-rail and the disused tram sheds. Riffling through the guff in my snail-mail box, I received a paper copy of a very similar document. Last night, as I photographed some really beautiful terraces along The Crescent, I was button-holed by a resident - Gareth - and the conversation quickly turned to the future of the large valley behind us.

Two women will be guiding this decision: Clover Moore, the Lord Mayor of Sydney and Kristina Keneally the state government Minister for Planning.

It peeves me that I will be inter-state next week when all the consultation will take place with the community. Then it goes to the Committee heavily weighted (well 4-3) in favour of the Planning Minister. Do read the story about her at the link - she is a regular little charmer. I will make my submissions online. I will put my thoughts up on Plumbing should you be interested.

The documents indicate that Harold Park Paceway value the development potential at $760m which is a bit rich considering they want to sell to avoid losing money; that the land for the paceway came from the government in 1902 and ownership of the tram sheds was transferred to them in 2002 - nothing about them paying anything for the land or the sheds. The tram sheds are heritage listed under the Leichhardt LEP, 2000.

Below, is a view of the harness race-track that is Harold Park.

DCP = Development Control Plan
LEp = Local Environmental Plan
CSPC = Central Sydney Planning Committee

Johnson Creek canal

Entering what I have realised is Rozelle Bay, Johnson's Creek is a facade: the front is beautiful but what lies behind is tawdry, as this series of images atests. This Labrador and his human have an early morning ritual. The dog fords to the centre of the canal just before it enters the bay then, with his guardian walking the "tow path" he dog-paddles around to the next set of steps which would have to be a good 200m!

Over there, across the bay, is the start of the ship-building neighbourhood. More of that next week. In the early morning light, the higgledy-piggedly yards are drop-dead gorgeous. Twizzle on my heel, looking up the creek/canal, there is the pedestrian bridge from which I took photos of the viaduct mid-week.


These two areas of greensward aren't contiguous, as these images might imply but they do give a good feel for the first third of my morning walk around Glebe. I walk for about 15 minutes through this type of terrain and try to envisage the geography when the First Fleet arrived. Richard Johnson came over on the First Fleet in 1788 and Governor Philip granted him land on which to build a church. This sort of land granted for ecclesiastic purposes is known as a "glebe". Johnson was a bit of an ineffectual minister and it was not until the arrival of the fire-breathing Samuel Marsden, that the life of the church in the new colony progressed.


Travelling further up the creek/canal, I look back toward the viaduct that I have been weaving in and out of all week. That white dribble is most definitely chemicals leaching from the mortar. And very ugly it is too! Look around to the south again and be confronted with the gruesome ugliness of the Harold Park Paceway which apparently needed more space for its circular track. This is the bit I most definitely would not want to walk at night.



These two images were taken from the Wigram Road bridge, the first looking north down the creek and the second looking south, up the creek. The graffiti is overwhelming. And ugly. And baffling. The entire area is owned and upkept (hah!) by the Water Board.


This was as far as I travelled: the Booth Street overpass in Annandale. Google Map tells me that Johnson Creek continues on up through Mallett Street Camperdown, until it is sourced somewhere in Stanmore. I suspect it is like the iconic Tank Stream in the CBD which only exists underground.

Richard Johnson's contribution to the fledling colony is commemorated in Johnson's Bay, Johnson's Creek and Johnson Street, the main thoroughfare through Annandale. Not bad for a bit of a loser ...

Pleasures of late Winter 4

The mother - who I would lay odds is a flaming redhead! - was not in the park with her brood. Father assumed the entire responsibility for all four of them. And they had a ball ... There was going to be a lot of washing to be done when they eventually arrived home.

As much as I love mogs, I can't see a cat participating quite like this ...

Pleasures of late Winter 2

Some kids have an inbuilt eye for sport. Their brain calculates the geometry of a kick, catch or throw exquisitely. Their body responds with the elegant curve of mastery even at a young age.

Running ahead of the ball and delivering a perfectly targetted back flick was not a problem for this fellow. And his dad was up the other end being ball-boy. Such hard and hot work this playing in the park with dad in winter. Centennial Park in the Eastern Suburbs is perfect for people watching ...

Harbour Islands - Shark (2 of 9)

Much to my dismay, the ferry to Shark Island does not run during the winter. Being a cold bleak day (by Australian standards!) I shot from the Rose Bay jetty and then skedaddled back home. I asked my daughter for permission to use some of her wedding shots.

As they boarded the water taxi for the trip back to the reception at Catalina's, the photographer captured the perfect view that Shark Island affords down the harbour. Shark Island is the closest island to the heads.


Top row: From Rose Bay jetty with 250 zoom, the day was grey as, but the harbour was riddled with boats of myriad kind. All this has been classified as park of Sydney Harbour National Park. There is a rotunda on the island plus a few other benches but that is about all.
Bottom row: Kirsten and Darren chose to marry on Shark Island as that is where they met on Valentine's Day three years earlier! The jetty on the left stretches back SW into Rose Bay itself. The point immediately behind the jetty is Point Piper and that is pretty ritzy. As they walked up to the grassy knoll, the city stretched out behind them. It was a gloriously sunny March day in 2007.


Top row: Back on the Rose Bay jetty, to the left of me I had a companion who was being pestered by gulls and as I shot photos and shivered both a taxi and a ferry siddled up to the jetty.
Bottom row: To the right of me, was the pontoons at which the Flying Boat squadron tied up. I can remember back in the early 50s when my aunt would fly from Rose Bay to Lord Howe Island for holidays. Behind the pontoons partway up the rise, is the gloriously gothic Kincoppal Sacred Heart School for Gals and on the horizon, the Dover Heights water tower.


Finally, the only other shot showing the island itself: the proud parents toast their daughter and the life-partner of her choice.

Joys of Childhood 3

Mumma was never far away. There were times when she had to clench her fists; times when she had to shove her hands in her pockets. She was the most concerned, but probably also the one who realised that letting go was the only way.


Her son had a ball: constantly challenging himself and squealing out with pleasure when his sneakers slipped and he flipped base-over-apex. Even Dad could see that not only was their physical ability being challenged, but their openness to the challenge was changing the way their brain approached the world in which they lived.

Sydney Park, the old Bee-hive kilns, St Peters