Sydney, Australia

From the Exile of Criminals to an Exemplary City


Bar over the great estuary
Nightlife at a bar overlooking the estuary and Sydney Harbor Bridge.
An Inspiration in Large Format
Asian girls shopping near George Street.
Sail to Luna
Competition sailboat passes in front of Luna Park.
Indigenous animation
Accurately painted aborigine plays digestoo on Sydney's Circular Quay.
Another night of opera
Vessel leaves light marks when sailing next to the Sydney Opera House, in the great estuary of the city.
Post-Labor I
Lively conversations on one of the many terraces always at the pine cone in Sydney.
Leftover busker
Saltimbanco juggles apples and fire around Circular Quay.
multilevel sydney
Bright traffic on George Street.
literate conversations
Young people live on the steps of a library in Sydney.
towards the other bank
Well-lit boat crosses the Sydney estuary.
Photo(in)gallery
Photo shoot of a wedding in one of the shopping galleries in the center.
Natural urban decoration
Ibis refresh themselves in an artistic fountain from Kings Cross.
Opera House in the spotlight
The most iconic building in Sydney, Australia and Oceania illuminated after dusk.
Bridge tour
Visitors roam the top of the Harbor Bridge.
Harbor Bridge, night version
Detail of the Harbor Bridge Lighting.
The Rocks
The Rocks entertainment area, with some of the buildings that housed inmates arriving from Great Britain.
Science
Detail of Sydney's prolific Victorian architecture.
Saint Andrew's Cathedral
Staircase to Saint Andrew's Cathedral
The first of the Australian colonies was built by exiled inmates. Today, Sydney's Aussies boast former convicts of their family tree and pride themselves on the cosmopolitan prosperity of the megalopolis they inhabit.

Kings Cross is the first area of ​​the city that most foreigners who arrive unwilling to pay more than a few tens of dollars per night's sleep come across.

Apart from the departure and the airy journey from the airport, it was also our inaugural and surreal vision of Australia.

During the afternoon, we walked backwards and forwards through the neighborhood under a sun that baked our skin and made us tired to bend but cheered the souls fed up with the freezing weather of Alone.

We compete with young people from all possible stops for the last vacancies in the humble inns of the neighborhood already equipped for another full summer. No sooner had twilight set in, than Kings Cross transvested into his night mode.

Drunkards, drug addicts, prostitutes and pimps, countless of Sydney's marginal characters, began to roam around it.

As happens in any and all cities, there they found their social niche between alternating bars, sex shops, peepshows, showgirls' houses, liquor stores and an opportunistic MacDonalds franchise that fed at low prices and scleroticized that artery by itself dysfunctional city.

The passersby we came across seemed so lunatic, improbable, and outlawed by life that we found ourselves yielding to the weight of British colonial history in an attempt to explain its unexpected presence and abundance.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, Saint Andrew's Cathedral

Staircase to Saint Andrew's Cathedral

We didn't want to be negative. Nor can we ignore the cultural importance of the neighborhood that hosted its music clubs and helped launch such landmark Australian bands as Go-Betweens and Nick Cave, among many others, to stardom.

But were there concentrated the genes of the most deviant English convicts who populated the enigmatic depths of the world?

Sydney Cove, Britain's Chosen Destination for Inmates

After the declaration of independence of USA., in 1776, Great Britain could no longer send its prisoners across the Atlantic.

Flooded with prisoners, the rulers decided to found a new penal post on the lands discovered by James Cook some sixteen years earlier.

The inaugural settlement took place at Sydney Cove. It was built on the basis of prison establishments built on lands of the Eora aboriginal tribe.

In 1792, there were only 4300 British prisoners exiled, but more than half of the native population of the area (4 to 8 indigenous people) had already been decimated by an epidemic of smallpox disseminated by the prisoners.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, CBD

Well-lit boat crosses the Sydney estuary.

Those who visit Sydney today soon find themselves on the shores of its privileged Harbour, which, even in times of expansion, Captain Arthur Phillip and other seamen soon cataloged as one of the best estuaries they had ever seen.

Sydney Harbour, a Grand Sea-facing Estuary of Tasmania

We bought some generous sushi rolls at the subway station entrance and had lunch on the go, late and late.

We shared the double-decker carriage with a group of blond, chatty surfer friends. Them, on their way to Bondi Beach's bathing Eden. We exit between the near-skyscrapers of the Central Business District (CBD), a few hundred meters from the much calmer inland waters of Circular Quay.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, Busker

Saltimbanco juggles apples and fire around Circular Quay.

An acrobat made his living by juggling flames on a huge unicycle that pedaled in the shadows generated by a metallic road structure.

Later on, a pair of aboriginals, almost naked and accurately painted, did the same, in her case, playing long hypnotic themes of digestoo wrapped in different house environments.

"Thank you friends. Get closer, we won't bite you!

Unless they look like a kangaroo, of course!” announces one of them with a strong ozzy accent in search of the audience and the dollars they exchanged for their music CDs.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, Indigenous animation

Accurately painted aborigine plays digestoo on Sydney's Circular Quay.

From Aboriginal Presence to Australians of All Parties

From Aboriginal to Contemporary much has changed in Australia's ethnic landscape. Sydney, in particular, has become its cosmopolitan and multicultural city.

There are around 55.000 inhabitants of Aboriginal ancestry in the city, coming from the four corners of the large island.

Today, of its nearly five million citizens, more than 1.5 million were born in other non-Australian parts of the world, an immigration trend that was established after the end of World War II and continues to intensify with strong contributions from New Zealanders, Chinese, Indians , Vietnamese, Koreans and Filipinos, as well as the Lebanese, Italians and Greeks.

Sydney, speaks 250 languages. A third of the inhabitants are masters other than English.

As we walked along Pitt's shopping streets, York and George proved to be so predominant Asians that it felt like we were in Hong Kong.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, fashion

Asian girls shopping near George Street.

The height of Sydney's clearance reached our ears when the beady-eyed owner of an establishment was indignant at our resistance to taking a fake change:

"That's lubish!” threw the newly arrived small businessman in his still precarious English.

The Historical Hedonism of the People of Sydney

In those parts or wherever we went, we enjoyed it like almost all sydneysiders they took advantage of the bounty of the area's climate.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, esplanade

Statue of Thomas Sutcliffe Mort, next to an esplanade in Sydney's Old Town.

CBD executives and bank employees matched short-sleeved shirts and even shorts with loose-fitting ties that enforced a modicum of professional ceremony.

After four or five in the afternoon – the very afternoon limit for working hours – instead of sneaking into the house, they joined the crowds drinking beer in pubs or outdoors.

Or they went for a run or a bike ride in their favorite, flowery and sunny parks and gardens, arranged around the many bays and peninsulas of that southern city.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, Ibis

Ibis refresh themselves in an artistic fountain from Kings Cross.

As we had already seen on the subway, carefree teenagers wore flowery shirts or walked – on foot or by bus – bare-chested and flip-flops exchanging their rugby ball or australian footballo or with surfboards and bodyboards, depending on the sport that most captivates them.

We dare not contradict the notion that, due to its geographical isolation and obsession with sport, it is drunken by evasion to oceanic nature and the Outback, Australia will be a great desert, also cultural, with a hedonistic Anglophone population, averse to class stratification and poorly polished.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, passing the time

Australians follow the action at Circular Quay on The Rocks waterfront.

It is believed that this is due to the fact that he descended from both the inmates and the military who controlled colonial operations until the beginning of the XNUMXth century.

Paying for labor and local produce in rum and hence nicknamed the Rum Corps, these many soldiers challenged and supplanted the authority of three of the colony's first governors.

One of them was called William Bligh, made notorious by a no less famous “Bounty Revolt” which took place in the Tahiti.

But if there are places that seek to eradicate the nation's civilizational harshness, Sydney is one of them.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, Queen Victoria Mall

Interior of the Queen Victoria department store.

The Architectural Magnificence and Culture of the Sydney Opera House

The impressive Opera House remains at the forefront of this mission.

We found it ahead of us after passing the bustling wharves of Circular Quay and the centuries-old buildings of The Rocks that housed the first inmates and their guardians, now preserved as shops, art galleries, cafes and pubs.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, The Rocks

The Rocks entertainment area, with some of the buildings that housed inmates arriving from Great Britain.

In 1973, when it was inaugurated, the Opera House aroused enormous controversy, if not for having cost 109 million dollars when it had been budgeted at XNUMX million.

That was the price of its fearless architecture, interpreted as white sails in the wind, white turtle shells, sea shells and camel humps, in any case, soon promoted to the great symbol of Sydney.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, Opera House

Boat sails near the Sydney Opera House, in the great estuary of the city.

It is the scene of exhaustive exploration of almost every visitor to the city and also of around 3000 annual events of various arts.

As we admire it, we notice that dozens of figures walk the heights of the Sydney Harbor Brigde, with breathtaking views of the Opera House and the endless estuary.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, Harbor Bridge, Harbor Bridge

Visitors roam the top of the Harbor Bridge.

Unsurprisingly, despite the distance to the rest of the world Sydney is one of its fifteen cities most visited.

It receives around three million international visitors a year, almost half of those from Australia.

Of these, a good number realize the prosperity and unique quality of life offered by the growing megalopolis of the Oceania, return and install themselves once and for all.

Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, Harbor Bridge

Nightlife at a bar overlooking the estuary and Sydney Harbor Bridge.

We've landed there on two occasions. It never happened to us.

Discovering Tassie, Part 2 - Hobart to Port Arthur, Australia

An Island Doomed to Crime

The prison complex at Port Arthur has always frightened the British outcasts. 90 years after its closure, a heinous crime committed there forced Tasmania to return to its darkest times.
Cairns-Kuranda, Australia

Train to the Middle of the Jungle

Built out of Cairns to save miners isolated in the rainforest from starvation by flooding, the Kuranda Railway eventually became the livelihood of hundreds of alternative Aussies.
Wycliffe Wells, Australia

Wycliffe Wells' Unsecret Files

Locals, UFO experts and visitors have been witnessing sightings around Wycliffe Wells for decades. Here, Roswell has never been an example and every new phenomenon is communicated to the world.
Perth, Australia

the lonely city

More 2000km away from a worthy counterpart, Perth is considered the most remote city on the face of the Earth. Despite being isolated between the Indian Ocean and the vast Outback, few people complain.
Busselton, Australia

2000 meters in Aussie Style

In 1853, Busselton was equipped with one of the longest pontoons in the world. World. When the structure collapsed, the residents decided to turn the problem around. Since 1996 they have been doing it every year. Swimming.
Perth to Albany, Australia

Across the Far West of Australia

Few people worship evasion like the aussies. With southern summer in full swing and the weekend just around the corner, Perthians are taking refuge from the urban routine in the nation's southwest corner. For our part, without compromise, we explore endless Western Australia to its southern limit.
Perth, Australia

The Oceania Cowboys

Texas is on the other side of the world, but there is no shortage of cowboys in the country of koalas and kangaroos. Outback rodeos recreate the original version and 8 seconds lasts no less in the Australian Western.
Atherton Tableland, Australia

Miles Away from Christmas (part XNUMX)

On December 25th, we explored the high, bucolic yet tropical interior of North Queensland. We ignore the whereabouts of most of the inhabitants and find the absolute absence of the Christmas season strange.
Alice Springs to Darwin, Australia

Stuart Road, on its way to Australia's Top End

Do Red Center to the tropical Top End, the Stuart Highway road travels more than 1.500km lonely through Australia. Along this route, the Northern Territory radically changes its look but remains faithful to its rugged soul.
Perth, Australia

Australia Day: In Honor of the Foundation, Mourning for Invasion

26/1 is a controversial date in Australia. While British settlers celebrate it with barbecues and lots of beer, Aborigines celebrate the fact that they haven't been completely wiped out.
Melbourne, Australia

An "Asienated" Australia

Cultural capital aussie, Melbourne is also frequently voted the best quality of life city in the world. Nearly a million eastern emigrants took advantage of this immaculate welcome.
Discovering tassie, Part 3, Tasmania, Australia

Tasmania from Top to Bottom

The favorite victim of Australian anecdotes has long been the Tasmania never lost the pride in the way aussie ruder to be. Tassie remains shrouded in mystery and mysticism in a kind of hindquarters of the antipodes. In this article, we narrate the peculiar route from Hobart, the capital located in the unlikely south of the island to the north coast, the turn to the Australian continent.
Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, lions
Safari
NP Gorongosa, Mozambique

The Wild Heart of Mozambique shows Signs of Life

Gorongosa was home to one of the most exuberant ecosystems in Africa, but from 1980 to 1992 it succumbed to the Civil War waged between FRELIMO and RENAMO. Greg Carr, Voice Mail's millionaire inventor received a message from the Mozambican ambassador to the UN challenging him to support Mozambique. For the good of the country and humanity, Carr pledged to resurrect the stunning national park that the Portuguese colonial government had created there.
Thorong Pedi to High Camp, Annapurna Circuit, Nepal, Lone Walker
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 12th - Thorong Phedi a High camp

The Prelude to the Supreme Crossing

This section of the Annapurna Circuit is only 1km away, but in less than two hours it takes you from 4450m to 4850m and to the entrance to the great canyon. Sleeping in High Camp is a test of resistance to Mountain Evil that not everyone passes.
Architecture & Design
Cemeteries

the last address

From the grandiose tombs of Novodevichy, in Moscow, to the boxed Mayan bones of Pomuch, in the Mexican province of Campeche, each people flaunts its own way of life. Even in death.
Boats on ice, Hailuoto Island, Finland.
Adventure
Hailuoto, Finland

A Refuge in the Gulf of Bothnia

During winter, the island of Hailuoto is connected to the rest of Finland by the country's longest ice road. Most of its 986 inhabitants esteem, above all, the distance that the island grants them.
Miyajima Island, Shinto and Buddhism, Japan, Gateway to a Holy Island
Ceremonies and Festivities
Miyajima, Japan

Shintoism and Buddhism with the Tide

Visitors to the Tori of Itsukushima admire one of the three most revered scenery in Japan. On the island of Miyajima, Japanese religiosity blends with Nature and is renewed with the flow of the Seto Inland Sea.
good buddhist advice
Cities
Chiang Mai, Thailand

300 Wats of Spiritual and Cultural Energy

Thais call every Buddhist temple wat and their northern capital has them in obvious abundance. Delivered to successive events held between shrines, Chiang Mai is never quite disconnected.
Tsukiji fish market, Tokyo, Japan
Meal
Tokyo, Japan

The Fish Market That Lost its Freshness

In a year, each Japanese eats more than their weight in fish and shellfish. Since 1935, a considerable part was processed and sold in the largest fish market in the world. Tsukiji was terminated in October 2018, and replaced by Toyosu's.
Women with long hair from Huang Luo, Guangxi, China
Culture
Longsheng, China

Huang Luo: the Chinese Village of the Longest Hairs

In a multi-ethnic region covered with terraced rice paddies, the women of Huang Luo have surrendered to the same hairy obsession. They let the longest hair in the world grow, years on end, to an average length of 170 to 200 cm. Oddly enough, to keep them beautiful and shiny, they only use water and rice.
Reindeer Racing, Kings Cup, Inari, Finland
Sport
Inari, Finland

The Wackiest Race on the Top of the World

Finland's Lapps have been competing in the tow of their reindeer for centuries. In the final of the Kings Cup - Porokuninkuusajot - , they face each other at great speed, well above the Arctic Circle and well below zero.
M:S Viking Tor Ferry-Wrapped Passenger, Aurlandfjord, Norway
Traveling
Flam a Balestrand, Norway

Where the Mountains Give In to the Fjords

The final station of the Flam Railway marks the end of the dizzying railway descent from the highlands of Hallingskarvet to the plains of Flam. In this town too small for its fame, we leave the train and sail down the Aurland fjord towards the prodigious Balestrand.
Early morning on the lake
Ethnic

Nantou, Taiwan

In the Heart of the Other China

Nantou is Taiwan's only province isolated from the Pacific Ocean. Those who discover the mountainous heart of this region today tend to agree with the Portuguese navigators who named Taiwan Formosa.

portfolio, Got2Globe, Travel photography, images, best photographs, travel photos, world, Earth
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Portfolio Got2globe

The Best in the World – Got2Globe Portfolio

Sanahin Cable Car, Armenia
History
Alaverdi, Armenia

A Cable Car Called Ensejo

The top of the Debed River Gorge hides the Armenian monasteries of Sanahin and Haghpat and terraced Soviet apartment blocks. Its bottom houses the copper mine and smelter that sustains the city. Connecting these two worlds is a providential suspended cabin in which the people of Alaverdi count on traveling in the company of God.
Magnificent Atlantic Days
Islands
Morro de São Paulo, Brazil

A Divine Seaside of Bahia

Three decades ago, it was just a remote and humble fishing village. Until some post-hippie communities revealed the Morro's retreat to the world and promoted it to a kind of bathing sanctuary.
Maksim, Sami people, Inari, Finland-2
Winter White
Inari, Finland

The Guardians of Boreal Europe

Long discriminated against by Scandinavian, Finnish and Russian settlers, the Sami people regain their autonomy and pride themselves on their nationality.
On the Crime and Punishment trail, St. Petersburg, Russia, Vladimirskaya
Literature
Saint Petersburg, Russia

On the Trail of "Crime and Punishment"

In St. Petersburg, we cannot resist investigating the inspiration for the base characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's most famous novel: his own pities and the miseries of certain fellow citizens.
Motorcyclist in Sela Gorge, Arunachal Pradesh, India
Nature
Guwahati a Saddle Pass, India

A Worldly Journey to the Sacred Canyon of Sela

For 25 hours, we traveled the NH13, one of the highest and most dangerous roads in India. We traveled from the Brahmaputra river basin to the disputed Himalayas of the province of Arunachal Pradesh. In this article, we describe the stretch up to 4170 m of altitude of the Sela Pass that pointed us to the Tibetan Buddhist city of Tawang.
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

A Capital between East and West

Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
Serra Dourada, Cerrado, Goiás, Brazil
Natural Parks
Serra Dourada, Goiás, Brazil

Where the Cerrado Waves Golden

One of the types of South America savannah, the Cerrado extends over more than a fifth of the Brazilian territory, which supplies much of its fresh water. Located in the heart of the Central Plateau and the state of Goiás, the Serra Dourada State Park shines double.
UNESCO World Heritage
Cascades and Waterfalls

Waterfalls of the World: Stunning Vertical Rivers

From the almost 1000 meters high of Angel's dancing jump to the fulminating power of Iguaçu or Victoria after torrential rains, cascades of all kinds fall over the Earth.
now from above ladder, sorcerer of new zealand, Christchurch, new zealand
Characters
Christchurch, New Zealand

New Zealand's Cursed Wizard

Despite his notoriety in the antipodes, Ian Channell, the New Zealand sorcerer, failed to predict or prevent several earthquakes that struck Christchurch. At the age of 88, after 23 years of contract with the city, he made very controversial statements and ended up fired.
Promise?
Beaches
Goa, India

To Goa, Quickly and in Strength

A sudden longing for Indo-Portuguese tropical heritage makes us travel in various transports but almost non-stop, from Lisbon to the famous Anjuna beach. Only there, at great cost, were we able to rest.
Gangtok House, Sikkim, India
Religion
Gangtok, India

An Hillside Life

Gangtok it is the capital of Sikkim, an ancient kingdom in the Himalayas section of the Silk Road, which became an Indian province in 1975. The city is balanced on a slope, facing Kanchenjunga, the third highest elevation in the world that many natives believe shelters a paradise valley of Immortality. Their steep and strenuous Buddhist existence aims, there, or elsewhere, to achieve it.
On Rails
On Rails

Train Travel: The World Best on Rails

No way to travel is as repetitive and enriching as going on rails. Climb aboard these disparate carriages and trains and enjoy the best scenery in the world on Rails.
Kogi, PN Tayrona, Guardians of the World, Colombia
Society
PN Tayrona, Colombia

Who Protects the Guardians of the World?

The natives of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta believe that their mission is to save the Cosmos from the “Younger Brothers”, which are us. But the real question seems to be, "Who protects them?"
Ditching, Alaska Fashion Life, Talkeetna
Daily life
Talkeetna, Alaska

Talkeetna's Alaska-Style Life

Once a mere mining outpost, Talkeetna rejuvenated in 1950 to serve Mt. McKinley climbers. The town is by far the most alternative and most captivating town between Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Flock of flamingos, Laguna Oviedo, Dominican Republic
Wildlife
Oviedo Lagoon, Dominican Republic

The (very alive) Dominican Republic Dead Sea

The hypersalinity of the Laguna de Oviedo fluctuates depending on evaporation and water supplied by rain and the flow coming from the neighboring mountain range of Bahoruco. The natives of the region estimate that, as a rule, it has three times the level of sea salt. There, we discover prolific colonies of flamingos and iguanas, among many other species that make up one of the most exuberant ecosystems on the island of Hispaniola.
Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports

In the century. XVIII, the Kiwi government proclaimed a mining village on the South Island "fit for a queen".Today's extreme scenery and activities reinforce the majestic status of ever-challenging Queenstown.