Harry's Cafe de Wheels

A short while ago, Bec and I attended the State of Australia's Cities (SOAC) conference in Sydney. The run-up to the end of the year is very busy in Sydney and reasonably priced accommodation was in very short supply. In the end, Bec arranged an apartment in trendy Woolloomooloo (how many o's and l's are there in that name!) for three nights. It was 25 minutes walk to our conference venue at the Shangri-la Hotel, but the route was very scenic taking us through the Botanic Gardens and Sydney's domain (which is edged by Parliament House, Government House, the State Library, and the Art Gallery of NSW). Then we had to hoof it down Martin Place (the banking quarter) or past the stock exchange towards the historic Rocks area settled in around 1788. The photos show the area where we stayed, but the most interesting feature by far was the mobile cafe called Harry's Cafe de Wheels. This institution is the same age as me exactly having been founded in 1945. And it is still going strong as evidenced by the queues of diners at seemingly all hours. Of course, we had to eat there too, but the area was littered with pubs and open-all-hours little corner stores. Here's the rather modest cafe ... now less mobile. And do you recognise the two well-known diners - Bec and Dot. We had all just driven from Canberra to our apartment, but I drove Dot back shortly after to stay one night with her brother before driving alone the remaining 500+km to Armidale the next day.

The views from our apartment were pleasant. The first shows the northern Central Business District with the harbour on the right hand end. The middle looks across the domain, and the third show the former finger wharf transformed into luxury apartments with marina access. You can just make out the harbour bridge in the background. 

Close by there was one of the tall ships that used to ply the trade in the 19th century between London and Sydney ... and also a modern, but less attractive, suite of recent apartments close to the botanic gardens. At least they've got parking for their boats!

Now for a couple of pubs with names reminiscent of the places sending boats to Australia. The top one shows the 'Tilbury', named after the port on the river Thames. And the second is the Frisco. Pommie readers are probably unaware that during the 19th century there was a constant flow of sailing ships across the Pacific to and from the USA. And while the California gold rushes were taking place Australia also had its gold rushes which often left vessels without crews as members set off for the 'diggings'!

And the surrounding streets were full of picturesque little houses - originally owned by workmen in a fairly rough neighbourhood. Nowadays, they're gentrified and expensive ... pleasant little places with close access to the city and its amenities. Note also the pedestrian-only street with its palm trees. I could live around here!

AS