Journey to Sydney and Back, Part 3

I've been visiting my daughter, Olivia and two grand
children and have just arrived back home after 10 days.

The Sydney Opera House is located in Sydney, New
South Wales, Australia and was designed by Jørn
Utzon, a Danish architect, and is one of the most
distinctive and famous 20th century buildings.

The start of the construction of The Sydney Opera House.

A competition was launched on 13th September 1955 and received a total of 233 entries from 32 countries. The criteria specified a large hall seating 3000 and a small hall for 1200 people. The prize of £5000 was awarded to a 38-year old Danish architect, Jorn Utzon.

The Sydney Opera House under construction.

The Fort Macquarie Tram Depot, which occupied the
site at the time, was demolished in 1958, and formal
construction of the Opera House began in March,
1959. The project was built in three stages.
Stage I (1959–1963) consisted of building the
upper podium. Stage II (1963–1967) saw the
construction of the outer shells. Stage III consisted
of the interior design and construction (1967–73).
The cost of the project so far, even in October of
1965, was still only $22.9 million, less than a quarter
of the final cost.
The Opera House was formally completed in 1973,
having cost $102 million.
The original cost estimate in 1957 was £3,500,000
($7 million) and the completion date set by the
government was January 26, 1963 (Australia Day).

The Opera House nearing completion.

The Opera House is 183 metres (605 feet) long and
about 120 metres (388 feet) wide at its widest point.
It is supported on 580 concrete piers sunk up to
25 metres below sea level. Its power supply is
equivalent for a town of 25,000 people. The power
is distributed by 645 kilometres of electrical cable.
The roofs of the House are covered with 1.056 million
glossy white and matte cream Swedish-made tiles,
though from a distance the tiles look only white.

The Opera House is one of the most famous
performing arts venues in the world and is situated
close to the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge. As well
as many touring theatre, ballet, and musical
productions, the Opera House is the home of Opera
Australia, the Sydney Theatre Company and the Sydney Symphony.

A typical afternoon with patrons leaving a concert.

The Sydney Opera House contains five theatres, five
rehearsal studios, two main halls, four restaurants,
six bars and numerous souvenir shops. The five
theatres of the Sydney Opera House are the Concert
Hall (with a seating capacity of 2,679), the Opera
Theatre (1,547 seats), the Drama Theatre (544 seats),
the Playhouse (398 seats) and the Studio Theatre (364 seats).

The Utzon Room rebuilt and redecorated to Utzon's original design.

In 1960, the American actor and singer Paul Robeson
climbed on the scaffolding to perform at the
(unfinished) Sydney Opera House while it was under
construction to sing to the workers.

The architect, the Danish Jørn Utzon left the project in
1966 after controversial discussions with the new
government which took over in 1965.

The Opera House was formally opened by Queen
Elizabeth II, on October 20, 1973, were crowds of
millions attended. The opening was televised and
included fireworks and a performance of Beethoven's
Symphony No. 9.

The Opera House with Fort Denison to the left and
rear of the Opera House.

By coincidence one of my other sisters was returning
from England by ship and so I was in Sydney with my
mother to welcome my sister back home. She was
arriving the day after the opening of the Opera House,
so I was at the opening of the Opera House.

It was a huge opening with thousands of boats, small
and large on the harbour. There were tug boats
shooting huge spouts of water into the air from
their fire hoses. As Queen Elizabeth declared the
building open, thousands and thousands of balloons
were released and a squadron of helicopters and
F111 Fighter Jets roared across the sky.

Peter with the
Opera House in
the background.

Wazza with the
Opera House in
the background.

Fort Denison, sometimes known as 'Pinchgut' or 'Rock
Island', was originally used as a place of punishment
for difficult convicts.
As early as 11 February 1788 a convict named Thomas
Hill was sentenced to a week on bread and water in
irons on 'the small white rocky Island adjacent to this
Cove'. By 1796 a gibbet had been installed on the
island and convicts who were sentenced to death
were left to hang until their bones turned white.

The most famous of these was Francis Morgan who
arrived in the colony on the Sugar Cane from Ireland
in 1793. He had been tried for the murder of a man
at Glassneven in Dublin, Ireland and was caught
wearing the murdered man's watch. His sentence was
commuted to transportation for life.
After his arrival here, he was again charged with
murder, having bashed a man named Simon Raven to
death on the north side of the harbour on 18th October 1796.

By the 1840s the colony, fearing invasion, had
converted the island into a fort and by 1857 the fort
was manned and there were two ten inch guns and
twelve 32 pounders. The guns have only been fired
during ceremonies and on special occasions.

A bit of trivia. There was a movie made in 1959
called “The Siege at Pinchgut” or “Four Desperate Men”
in the USA. It starred Aldo Ray and was a black and
white movie “The Siege of Pinchgut” was made on
location in Australia, and at the Elstree Studios less
than a mile from MGM at Borehamwood in London.
Aldo Ray played a prisoner on his way to serve a long
sentence who escapes with his younger brother and
two henchmen in a stolen ambulance. They take refuge
on the small island of Pinchgut in Sydney Harbour and
make hostages of the inhabitants - the caretaker, his
wife and daughter.

The Australian film
“The Siege of Pinchgut”
was restored as part of
the Kodak Atlab Project
and is a favourite of
Quentin Tarantino.

Aldo Ray demands from the police an assurance that
he will he granted a retrial, so that he can establish
his innocence, and when it is not forthcoming he
threatens to detonate an ammunition ship in the
harbour by firing at it with an ancient naval gun
situated on the island. The police evacuate the city,
send in sharpshooters who eliminate the accomplices,
then follow up with a wave of frogmen. Eventually,
after a furious battle, the ringleader is shot down
and his brother is led off to jail, having formed a
romantic liaison with the girl hostage.

The beach at Manly, a popular swimming beach.

Situated seven miles north-east of Sydney on the
lower Northern Beaches, Manly was named by
Captain Arthur Phillip after his encounter with the
confident and manly Aboriginal people of the
Kay-ye-my clan who lived here and is surrounded
on three sides by water.

One of the Sydney Ferries that plies the harbour to Manly.

Travelling to Manly from Sydney's main ferry
terminal, Circular Quay, takes 30 minutes by ferry
or 15 minutes by the faster 'Jet Cat' catamaran.

The Corso, a pedestrian plaza and one of Manly's
main streets for shopping and dining, runs from the
ferry wharf and harbour beach all the way across
the peninsula to Manly Beach.

.....................Wazza at Manly Beach.

I was going to continue on with this post to include
the Queen Victoria Building, but there are too many
photos to show and I fear that this post is long
enough, so my next post will include the QVB,
St. Mary’s Cathedral Church, St. Andrew’s Anglican
Church and some photos taken during our guided
bus tour around the CBD of Sydney.