30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account by Peter Carey

Author:Peter Carey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Travel, Essays & Travelogues, General, Literary, Sydney (N.S.W.), Biography & Autobiography, Australia & Oceania
ISBN: 9781596915695
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2008-10-07T18:39:58.244899+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I WAS MUCH SURPRISED at the fortifications of Sydney Harbour, wrote Anthony Trollope. Fortifications, unless specially inspected, escape even a vigilant seer of sights, but I, luckily for myself, was enabled specially to inspect them. I had previously no idea that the people of New South Wales were either so suspicious of enemies, or so pugnacious in their nature. I found five separate fortresses, armed, or to be armed, to the teeth with numerous guns, - four, five, six at each point; - Armstrong guns, rifled guns, guns of eighteen tons of weight, with loopholed walls, and pits for riflemen as though Sydney were to become another Sebastopol. I was shown how the whole harbour and city were commanded by these guns. There were open batteries and casemented batteries, shell rooms and powder magazines, barracks rising here and trenches dug there. There was a boom to be placed across the harbour and a whole world of torpedoes ready to be sunk beneath the water, all of which were prepared and ready to use in an hour or two. It was explained to me that 'they' could not possibly get across the trenches, or break the boom, or escape the torpedoes, or live for an hour beneath the blaze of guns . . . But in viewing these fortifications, I was most especially struck by the loveliness of the sites chosen. One would almost wish to be a gunner for the sake of being at one of these forts.

Trollope was in my mind as the departing Manly Ferry scraped, iron on wood, along the wharf at Circular Quay that Monday morning.

If only you would get your head out of books, said a by now familiar voice. Look around you. Is it not a lovely sight?

Yes, I answered, but the book helps you see this landscape better. It is the book that shows you that this city has been shaped by its defences. Over there, to the left, where the bridge sticks its claws in the rock, was once Fort Dawes. And there on Bennelong Point, where the opera house is, that was Fort Macquarie, the ugliest thing Greenway ever designed. And a few hundred metres north is Pinchgut . . .

Don't mention Francis Morgan . . .

. . . who was hung in chains until he fell apart. Pinchgut's proper name is Fort Denison.

Behind Fort Denison is the naval dockyard of Garden Island where you can see that great ugly cream-brick structure, so typical of Australian barracks architecture. This five acres of inner-city waterfront is still controlled by the Defence Department.

On the north shore, directly north of Farm Cove, five acres of splendid gardens tumble down towards the sandstone cliffs and there, behind that armed policeman, is the sandstone mansion of Admiralty House. It was, for many years, the home of the British admiral commanding the British squadron in Australia.

Time and again the armed forces have taken possession of the most beautiful land on Sydney Harbour. Five bays along from Kirribilli House you will find that great scabby finger of Bradleys Head.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.