Well, after my near overly dramatic self-pity The Real World episode of the previous night, I made the decision to venture outside of my hotel back into urban Sydney. Keep in mind that I had been up past 2 AM the night before, so sleeping in until 10 AM felt justified. My goal today was two-fold. One, find the walkway and walk across the Harbour Bridge from the North into Sydney and two, explore the Sydney natural history museum or whatever it is called. In retrospect I probably should have looked up the address of the museum, but I was pretty sure I passed by it during my last visit. I was prepared with my Canon 20D camera fitted with its EF 24-105 f/4 L lens, my Canon SD850 IS, and my now-running-retired since the marathon pair of Nike running shoes, wallet, and passport.
I expected it to be a task to find the stairs, elevator, or just plain beginning of the walkway on the Harbour Bridge. I haven’t seen any maps that really go over this as most maps go over the driving lanes, not the pedestrian route. Not really, the stairs are literally across the street from my hotel. It’s not that I was disappointed with this, but I expected this to take thirty minutes of walking time. So off I went over the bridge. Let me restate that – off I went to *walk* over the bridge.
It’s a nice walk. The sidewalk is on the east side of the bridge, so as you walk south on it you see the Sydney Opera House to your left, and a glimpse of the open ocean as well. I’m not sure what the distance of the walk is – I’d guess around one mile, but I’m sure it’s documented somewhere online. There are a couple ways to walk off the bridge into Sydney, one is a group of stairs which lead you into The Rocks, the other extends further down closer to the Central Business District (CBD). My walk through the city was similar to the last time I had been there. I made my way through The Rocks to Circular Quay (pronounced “key”) and then back north to the Opera House. It really is an architectural marvel, but I’d seen it once already so I didn’t take the triple-digit amount of photos this time through. From there, through the way I’d imagine the way to the museum I also went through the Royal Botanical Gardens. Again, been there – done that, but it’s all very beautiful just the same. Actually, from a tourist point of view I think I prefer the gardens over the Opera House. The Opera House is there, you see it, you walk around it, and if you want, you can get an indoor tour of it for just under two-hundred Australian Dollars. The gardens on the other hand are free and the area is much larger than the Opera House. You can also walk through the garden for hours on its own. After exiting the gardens I made my way down a street and found the Sydney Museum of Art. It really wasn’t on my agenda, but then again I’ve already saved thirty minutes by finding the walkway over the bridge so easily and the museum is free. We like free.
The Sydney Art Museum has been there for a long time. Again, I’m sure you can look up the exact date of it’s opening, but I just don’t care. The fact that its here now makes it important. When I walked in I expected either tile or marble styled floors, but instead I found wood floors. Squeaky wood floors like you’d find in a mountain cabin. Each floorboard was less than two inches wide, and was laid out in opposing sets at a 45 degree angle to the room. It’s either a three or four story structure, has white walls, skylights, an overpriced café, and art on the walls. That’s the difference. I’ve been to a few art museums in the United States and I found the art here to be noticeably different. US museums have your Monet’s and such, and art from the 15-1700’s, but the art in this museum was more “English” and military based. In most rooms there is one large mural painting taking up half the room – and I found most of them to be to be very detailed and of a military hero or story. Most of the paintings I saw were very detailed down to hairs on a man’s beard. There is also an Asian art area which I also enjoyed – especially the Japanese section with katanas on display. There was a modern art area as well, but I’ve dropped food into the disposal before and wasn’t in the mood to see someone else’s mess.
I probably spent close to two hours in the art museum if that says anything about how much I enjoyed it. Keep in mind, I’m not an artsy fartsy guy. After a short walk I was now in the CBD. At this point I realized I hadn’t yet had breakfast or lunch, and it was getting close to 2 PM. There were a number of restaurants I had passed on my walk to the art museum. There was always the Opera House Oyster Bar. I’m sure I could find a way to have another sixty dollar lunch there for one, but I wanted to try something new. My friend Jim had mentioned this restaurant where he ordered these Lowenbrau beers, and sure enough I had passed a restaurant called Lowenbrau in The Rocks. Once I arrived I ordered and ice water and a beer – Lowenbrau of course. The catch with that order was that the water was in a small glass and the beer was served in a one liter mug. Let me mention that a bottle of wine is 750mL, and I was having 1L of beer. When it came time to order my meal I just pointed to someone else sitting outside on the patio and asked ‘what is that, and I think I’ll order that’. Schweinshaxn – oven roasted pork knuckle, sauerkraut, bier sauce, and mashed potatoes. Just excellent. So the sauerkraut and mashed potatoes were just as you’d think they’d be, and the bier sauce was also very good – a light brown sauce obviously made with beer, a roux most likely, and other assorted spices – maybe even butter. The pork knuckle now was something new altogether. I believe ‘knuckle’ could be substituted with shank. My first thought was it being similar to a ham hock, but that’s only by size. This piece of meat had two bones through it, and I believe was roasted skin on. If you like fried pork skins you’d like this as well – it was very crispy, salty, and also created a layer to keep in all the juices of the meat. Penetrating the shell you find meet with a slightly more firm texture than carnitas, but very moist and flavorful. It matched the sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, and the beer sauce very well. It was such a simple dish with many levels of complexity; I’d recommend it highly and hope to visit it again with some friends. After this I walked my way back through The Rocks, a small outdoor market, over the bridge and back to my hotel, The Vibe North Sydney.
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