Australia Day

January 26th marks the anniversary of the 1st landing by Captain Arthur Phillip at Pork Jackson (Sydney) in 1788. Today it celebrates 'diversity & tolerance' within Australian society and is known as Australia Day.

Friday was the the first chance that Lucy & I had had to see Australia Day up close, and what an event it was. The evening before had got the celebration off to a flier with drinks & fireworks at the Newport Arms - overlooking Pittwater. Another 'small world' example on the bus home - bumped into a girl from Marske who went to school with the sister of the couple we have staying with us at the moment! And on the Friday we awoke slightly later than hoped and wandered along Manly Beach looking for the traditional breakfasts we had been promised. Unfortunately, we were a little too late (10.30am) and ended up having breakfast (still lovely) in the Four Olives Deli then jumped onto the ferry to take us to the CBD.

As it happens we had good timing as during the journey we caught the tail-end of the 'Ferrython' (basically 4 ferries are decked out in corporate colours & race around the harbour) and one of Lucy's friends was on the NAB ferry - which we managed to catch just as it got drenched by the fireboat!

It was once we got to the CBD though that the day really began. As we got off the ferry there was a fly-past by a F-18 fighter (we couldn't see it but we could hear it! - one of my colleagues was watching from the 26th floor and said the windows shook), then we wandered around The Rocks as there was a variety of live music - beatbox (Lucy bought a CD), aborigine dance (Lucy bought a CD), country (I almost bought a CD) and jazz.

After that we headed for Hyde Park, passing an impressive fleet of vintage cars & caravans, and stopping off at the Crime & Punishment Museum, Government House & the RBA museum on the way (all of the museums were free for the day - which makes a refreshing change). The most interesting bit of information was in the RBA museum which had a section on decimalization - it's amazing how close the Aussies came to naming their currency the 'Royal'. I'm not sure how that would have sat with the Republicans amongst them....needless to say that idea was eventually dropped (although the museum does still have some mock-ups) and the dollar adopted.

We spent a while in Hyde Park, eating (thai), drinking (coopers) & listening to some of the free music - couple of different djs & live music around the different stages. Wasn't such a big fan of the live music on offer here, but the sun & the beer helped! Once this event finished we headed over to Darling Harbour for the fireworks... the build-up seemed to last forever with a selection of new Australian citizens telling us all how proud they were to be Australian & the governor and premier of New South Wales telling us all how lucky we were to be Australian (which I'm not)... and then they teased us with the National Anthem finishing off with a few fireworks... then some random bloke sang a song (no idea who he was or what the song was) before the big show started. And what a display it was...even better than New Years Eve for my money... and probably the best fireworks I've EVER seen.

Then we had tickets for a night at the Hyde Park Barracks - sponsored by a very good radio station FBI - and featuring a wide variety of acts & djs. An excellent location & very well organized. The djs were all pretty good & we particularly enjoyed the Japanese beat-box group but left when a very average group called Blox arrived....every word seemed to start with F.

Finally, we headed to the Spiegeltent (see pic) which I had read about in the Sydney Festival Guide & it's basically a large, ornate tent with wood / glass sides built in Belgium during the 1920s - Lucy tells me there was a similar tent called the 'Pussy Parlour' at Glastonbury festival. An excellent venue & the New Orleans jazz performed by Juke Baritone & the Swamp Dogs provided a superb way to end the evening. Actually, the whole set-up evoked thoughts of spending time in a dingy New Orleans jazz club.

The whole day made me think about how very proud the Australians are about their country & culture. And also why don't we have such a day in England? St. Patrick's day is celebrated more in England than anything else and the American's have Independence Day, the Scots have Burns' night and even the Canadians have Canada Day so why don't the English have anything? I think it would help us to reflect on what it means to be English - apart from being poor at cricket.