Day 58 - Exploring Darling Harbour

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Once again we got up this morning and took the ferry to Circular Quay and again to Darling Harbour. We had planned to go the the aquarium first, but the queue was extermely long, and as it was open until 10pm we had then rest off the day to go back. Instead we went to the Maritime Museum. The indoor museum is free to look around and contains lots of relics relating to the Maritime history. The most interesting part was The Destroyer warship and a submarine, both moored in the harbour, which you could freely explore. The submarine was partically interesting to look around and its quite incredible to see how small and claustrophic the quarters were that the crew lived in. The crew slept in bunks just large enough for there strapped-down body, sometimes with equipment just a few inches from their face. There were thousands of dials and valves and pipes cluttering everywhere. Its pretty scary to imagine being down their for weeks at a time - especially during a war.

We spent some time looking around the Chinese Gardens which were very nicely kept - a lake with fish, bridges, winding paths, small temples, and lots of interesting plants and trees. It was a relaxing environment and we had a typical english afternoon tea with scones; great.

Heading back into Darling Harbour we had a look around an Aboriginal shop and found there was a free Didgeridoo Show so we stayed to watch it. This was very incredibly interesting and lasted about half hour. The presenter was half aboriginal and and only learnt about his aboriginal background around ten years ago. He discussed how to play the didgeridoo as well as the meaning of the instrument, and played some very enjoyable music. The sounds that can be made by a Didgeridoo are incredible - We've not heard anything like it before; the longer the didj, and the wider the base, the deeper and better the sound is. Phils got a lot of practicing to do on the one he already has!

At the end of the day we looked around Sydney Aquarium and saw lots of interesting and colourful fish, sharks and coral. The best section was walking throught a glass walkway completely surrounded by sharks. Although busy, it was nowhere near as hectic as it had been earlier.

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