Padang's colonial relics (and a run-down harbour)

West Sumatra's capital, Padang, is a big and thriving city of almost a million people, and by and large it's not particularly run-down, with lots of new buildings post the 2009 earthquake. But the old Dutch colonial quarter is as run-down as it gets. The old Dutch and Chinese warehouses are not looking too good. Not much rebuilding here since the earthquake. I suspect there's a heritage order or something on the area, and maybe the owners are waiting for it all to collapse so they can bulldoze the lot?

Lots of decaying old boats in the old harbour too.

Schooners 2

In Jakarta a few days earlier, I'd been unable to get into the old schooner harbour, but no such problems in West Sumatra, in Padang's old port. I was waved in by a friendly watchman, and was free to wander and photograph the colourful scene around me.

The old schooners came and went. Trucks and boats were being loaded and unloaded.

The cargo on this one was bamboo poles.

Schooners

Here's the old Makassar schooner harbour at Sunda Kelapa, northern Jakarta. They still use these terrific old boats for a lot of the inter-island trade throughout the country.

I got my view from the old Watchtower, which used to be for keeping an eye on all the harbour traffic. I wasn't able to stroll around the harbour for a close-up view this trip. The gates were closed and there were signs prohibiting pedestrians.











When I was here in 1984 it was a different story. I was able to stroll around the place, and on and off several of the vessels via scary narrow gangplanks. Below is one of my pictures from that trip.

Mrs Macquarie's view

Lady Elizabeth Macquarie - wife of Governor Lachlan Macquarie - used to sit on her convict-carved stone chair, enjoying the best view of Sydney Harbour.

She is said to have made a point of watching ships arriving from England. Maybe a bit like me taking a look at the two 'Canberra class landing helicopter dock (LHD) ships' at nearby Garden Island.

They are said to have been built in Spain, and are being finished off in Melbourne and here in Sydney. But they don't half look like one we saw being built in southern India last year. There had been a strict ban on photography around the shipyard there, and now I see why. The Spaniards contracted the job out to India and don't want anyone to know!

So what do we want our LHDs to do for us? In the words of militaryfactory.com  it's 'to strengthen the RAN inventory against growing regional threats (such as that posed by China)'. You could probably paraphrase that as 'so we could fight a war against China', but put that simply it sounds as stupid as it probably is. That's the navy for you, I guess. There again, watching the news today, it starts to look like we really have been given a role in some geopolitical adventure folly in the South China Sea by our American masters. The Macquaries would have been quite at home with geopolitical adventures, of course. That's why they were here to start with.

What else have we got for Mrs Macquarie to look at? We've got an endless deluge of lunchtime joggers, some of them just running up and down a flight of steps for their whole lunch break. We've got the world's most photographed opera house and bridge. We've got all the tourists photographing them.









So she's got a colourful and lively place to sit and pass the time.

Harbour Bridge Pylon Lookout & Museum

Lonely Planet recently spruiked the wisdom of forgoing the expensive Bridgeclimb walk over the Harbour Bridge, in favour of the somewhat more modest attraction of the lookout and museum located in the bridge's southeast pylon.

For a mere $11, against $200 or more, you get almost as good a view, you get to take all your own photographs, you get to spend as little or as long as you like there (and to spend a penny if necessary too!) You also learn quite a lot about this iconic bridge and its construction.

I've been telling my visitors all of this for a long time, and the other day I reacquainted myself with the place. It was still a nice little visitor experience.

You do indeed look down on the Bridgeclimb people for much of their journey. You get great views of Circular Quay and the visiting cruise ships. You can see the Blue Mountains far to the west. And you almost get to swing on the scary cables used by the construction workers, unencumbered by any safety harnesses or anything, while they positioned the various meccano bits together eighty years ago.