New views of North Head's old stuff

We've all been to North Head, driven out to the lookouts for the spectacular views across to South Head or up the Harbour. Or we might have strolled up by foot from Manly via Shelly Beach, and through that hole in the wall.

Well I've only recently discovered that the experience is now far richer than that. There's now a North Head Sanctuary, there's open public access to lots of historic treasures, and there's a big network of new walking tracks, lookouts, and information centres.

 

A couple of weeks ago I was part of a bushwalking group that did a 13km circuitous 'circuit' around the peninsula, and I was astonished at all the new stuff I got to see. I hadn't bothered to switch on my GPS tracker. Thought I'd have no trouble locating our route afterwards. But I became gloriously disoriented. That bugged me a lot, and so I just had to return a few days later, to explore it all a bit better, and to map  out my wanderings. I found myself going around in circles a couple of times, but eventually sorted it out, over what turned out to be a 17km course starting and finishing at Manly Wharf.

Among the highlights:

The old St Patricks seminary, now the International College of Management. The grounds of this fine old building are open to the public.

The Barracks Precinct, formerly the School  of Artillery, with its enormous parade ground.

The old Quarantine Cemetery, where 240 people are buried, presumably ones who never made it out of the Quarantine Station.


Then there's the Quarantine Station itself, with museum, and renovated or rebuilt accommodations for functions and things.



Here's the old Quarantine hospital, and its doctors' and nurses' quarters.

















There are very solid stone walls everywhere, dividing all the bits from each other.

There's Australia's Memorial Walkway, which 'honours those who have served and supported the defence of Australia in peace or in war'. And you get to explore the North Fort, and some of the old gun emplacements, which were part of the country's WW2 defences.

Below: the famous 'hole in the wall', and a very crowded Shelly Beach.

Wet day in London town

It was time for a break from Birmingham's subtle charms, so I decided to take myself off on a day trip to London.

I wanted to avoid crowds, and somehow decided that New Year's Eve (a Tuesday and not a public holiday) might be a good bet. In the evening there would be people congregating for the midnight fireworks show, but I'd be back in Birmingham by then. Besides, it was cold and wet and winter, so how many tourists were likely to be about?

Wrong, very wrong. I arrived at Euston station and was confronted by massive queues at the Underground ticket booths and machines. Not to worry, I can stroll along the street to St Pancras station, thus doing a useful recce for my forthcoming Eurostar journey of the following week. I'd get my day's transport ticket there.

St Pancras was even worse. Literally hundreds of international travellers were jammed into there, all trying to get their London experiences started. It was going to cost them hours off their precious day, just to get going! I strolled off again, eventually finding Euston Square station, and a usefully functioning ticket counter (not their machines though - a forlorn Dutchman was standing at one, warning us that his machine had just taken his £20 note and given him nothing).

I made my way to Queensway, and did my usual wet walk across Kensington Gardens, past Round Pond, the Albert Memorial, and the Royal Albert Hall. I checked out good old Imperial College, noting all the changes. Several shiny colourful buildings had appeared since my last inspection, and whole new enterprises started, like the Grantham Institute for Climate Change.

It was still raining, and the closed-for-the-holidays college hadn't presented any opportunities for sheltering or drying out (or lunching), so the next option was the museums. South Kensington's museums had never let me down. Warm, dry, interesting. I'd be able to while away several happy hours in the Science Museum, or the Natural History Museum. Or even the Victoria & Albert Museum. 

Alas, there were huge queues at the museums too. It was going to take me a couple of hours even to get into one and out of the wet! I concluded that my London day trip strategy was all wrong. Lots of people were in town town today. Maybe they were heading for the fireworks but had decided to make a whole day of it, and when it had rained they'd all hit on the museum idea, not just me. Forget this.

I headed off again, had a soggy lunch outside a Pret a Manger outlet, and then trudged off via Knightsbridge, towards the parks and Serpentines and things that lead you to eventually to Whitehall, Westminster, and the Embankment.

On the way, while passing Harrods in fact, I remembered Julian Assange and the Ecuadorian embassy. He's been holed up there for over a year, and by all accounts the UK government had spent a fortune on their efforts to block his movements and maybe arrest him if he set foot on the street. (They've spent $8 million  according to one recent report! http://rt.com/news/assange-cost-uk-8m-765/  )  Sure enough, there were FOUR police vehicles parked outside the embassy! Presumably this goes on around the clock, and has done for all this time. All ostensibly because the Swedish government wants to ask him whether he'd used a condom or not during his stay in Sweden.

In Whitehall I stumbled on the one saving grace of the day, the Churchill War Rooms, http://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/churchill-war-rooms  This is a museum consisting of the underground complex, under Whitehall, where Churchill and his World War 2 war cabinet largely ran the war from. You get to see the Cabinet room, communication rooms, private quarters, all kinds of dimly lit wonders. And it's all real. I used to tell people the only things Britain did well were the pubs and the TV. Then the TV went downhill, so it was just the pubs. Maybe WW2 nostalgia has risen to become the other thing they do well. Sad really, but it was indeed rather good.



When I eventually made it to the Embankment at Westminster at about 6 pm, the crowds were already building up alarmingly for the fireworks. I asked a volunteer whether there was an early show as well as the midnight one. (Sydney does two early shows now, as well as the big one.) No, they said, the midnight show's enough.They were beginning to barricade the viewing areas off, to limit the number of those entering, but also presumably preventing those there from escaping! I thought I'd better withdraw quickly, make my way back to Euston, and head back to Birmingham to watch the show on TV.