Hmmm... 'All welcome' said the sign…read more Walked up the steps to find a locked door, barred windows, and not a sign of opening hours in sight. I'm confused. There's a sign 'Heritage and Visitor's Centre'. It is right next to St Patrick's Cathedral, a small plaque outlines a brief history of the place, it's obviously kept up. But not open. Not searchable on the Cathedral's website. It's not like there's a lack of heritage either. 200 years or so. The Cathedral site once housed the country's first convent, early schools. A shame. If that's anyone's idea of 'welcome', you've got me stumped.

Lennox Bridge in Glenbrook is the oldest bridge on the Australian mainland (predated by the…read moreRichmond Bridge in Tasmania, completed 1825). This single-arch sandstone bridge was designed by David Lennox, a bridge builder and stonemason who emigrated to Australia in 1832 after the death of his wife. Before his arrival in August 1832, the new colony of New South Wales had no skilled stonemasons, and Lennox was a Master Stonemason with 20 years experience. After a chance meeting with the Surveyor-General, Major Thomas Mitchell, David Lennox was appointed Sub-Inspector of Bridges and later Superintendent of Bridges for the colony. Lennox Bridge was completed in July 1833 by David Lennox and a party of 20 convicts. It is constructed with large sandstone blocks from a local quarry with a single arch of 6m (20-feet) span and 9m (30 feet) above water level, with a road width of 9m (30 feet). Due to its design, it is also known as Horseshoe Bridge. The significance of Lennox Bridge is that it allowed the Great Western Highway through Mitchell's Pass over Lapstone Creek and opened up the development of the Blue Mountains and western NSW. The bridge served the main route to the Blue Mountains for 93 years until 1926 when the Great Western Highway was re-routed along the old railway line over Knapsack Viaduct. In 1967 Lennox Bridge was closed for restoration work and strengthened with concrete, reopening to traffic in 1982. David Lennox also designed Lennox Bridge over Parramatta River in nearby Parramatta, as many other bridges also including 53 bridges in the Port Phillip (Melbourne) area. The bridge photograph is used by permission of the very talented Australian photographer Steve Dorman (http://Flickr.com).

Took the walk from the opera house to the royal botanic garden and we stopped to see the ruins…read more Cool spot.

Walking past I thought it looked like a strange art project. Love walking around all the different…read morepieces of the old architectural pieces from the city. This is just outside our hotel (Sir Stamford) on our way into the botanical garden

Just to think that just outside Sydney, hidden away in the Brisbane Water National Park you will…read morefind some Egyptian Hieroglyphics carved into a granite rock outcropping. If you don't believe me go and check them out yourself. Okay, they aren't 'real' hieroglyphics, and they definitely don't mark the tomb of an Egyptian prince that found himself lost in the Australian bush four thousand years ago, but they are certainly one of those really bizarre things that a huge number of myths and legends that developed around. I'd heard about them years ago, but only remember of their existence recently, and this made the effort to hike out there to check them out. Okay, while I'm only an amateur archaeologist at best, I can say for certain that these glyphs aren't four thousand years old (I would probably say a hundred years at most, though there are quite a number that are a lot more recent - it seemed as if somebody started a fad attracting all sorts of people to add to this rather odd spectacle). Mind you, they aren't listed on any of the Sydney tourist brochures, but if you like the weird and strange, and don't mind a but of a hike, then definitely go and check it out (I have placed the marker on their exact location, and Google Maps is also pretty accurate as well).

Forget Freddy Krueger et. al. Real nightmares are made of canvas!…read more I'm talking canvas straitjackets and canvas "muffs" and "mittens." Don't be fooled; for all the Louisa May Alcott-y appeal conjured by names like "muffs" and "mittens," they were designed for the prevention of excessive scratching and erm...other "excessive" devilish activities for idle hands. As for the straitjackets, according to the exhibits, you'll be pleased to know they were finally outlawed at the Cumberland Hospital by the mid-1960s in favour of more "humane" treatments. And not a day too soon... Leather ankle and wrist restraints, waxed cardboard "Brain Buckets" used during autopsies, 1930s amputation knives, a mean looking enema and douche apparatus, a cadaver-measuring ruler, a trolley from the morgue, nurses' uniforms, a cabinet of chemist's products and "quackery," a collection of ward keys that locked away patients, and a chronological display of ECT (electroconvulsive "shock" therapy) machines all make this a confronting and comprehensive repository of mental health care history. You don't get a sense of the undoubtedly heartbreaking personal side of that history here, though, with the exception of one glass case of items recovered from beneath various wards: fading, ripped sepia photos of nameless loved ones, old spoons and countless keys (what were the "locked up" locking away, I wonder?), letters, ciggies and specs. If only these objects could talk! It's all jam-packed into the upper floor of "Glengarriff House" (a.k.a. Cumberland Hospital Museum), located on the sprawling grounds of the present day Cumberland Hospital (Psychiatric). Glengarriff House itself is a significant part of the history of mental health as it was the official residence of the Medical Superintendent of the Parramatta Hospital for the Insane (1907-1963). The museum is only open during the 4 days of the annual Wisteria Gardens Festival (in September) or by appointment and admission is a mere $1 (or nothing at all if you get to the top of the stairs and find no one to collect y'coin or no place to deposit it for safekeeping...Oops! Please accept my review as payment!). I recommend you do as I did and visit the museum before or after fully exploring the grounds of the Cumberland Hospital, which is an absolute hotspot of historically significant sites dating back to Australia's colonial era. For example, as early as the 1840s, the former "Female Factory" became the Parramatta Asylum for Lunatic and Invalid Convicts, giving this site a long historical association with mental health "care" - if you can call it that. One further recommendation: I normally encourage people to take young people to historical museums, but this one is really not for the very young kiddies. Bearing in mind my personal phobia of life-sized cardboard cut-outs and things of that ilk, I think the creepy looking mannequins on display here alone possess the power to send me well 'n' truly out o' my faraway tree. If that happens I'll be making the following request: not the mittens. Please...NOT THE MITTENS! * Review originally written and posted 22 September 2013.