I'm Free Tour!

So I’ve been slacking a little bit when it comes to this blog.  I’m going to attempt to catch up and fill you all in on everything.

Last Sunday (July 31st) some of my friends and I found a free tour of Sydney called “I’m Free Tours!”   It’s a three hour tour of all things Sydney and best of all it’s free!

http://www.imfree.com.au/

I figured some of you might enjoy the tour so I’m going to walk you through some of my pictures.  My plan was to remember all of the history of each place and the names, but I doubt I will actually remember so bear with me.

We started our journey at Sydney Town Hall on George Street.

My friends who came along for the tour: Christian, Adhi, and Lauren.

Our lovely tour guide whose name I have forgotten...

To start off our tour he told us a story about the word Eternity.

Over 80 years ago this word started showing up all over Sydney.  It was written in chalk and crayon, on buildings, sidewalks, and bells.  No one knew where it was coming from or who had written it but it was a special message to Sydneysiders of inspiration and hope.  In 1956 (I looked it up) a Reverend came across one of the members of his church writing the word eternity on the sidewalk.  He had discovered Mr.Eternity, Arthur Stace.  The message, eternity, had actually been inspired by a sermon when a reverend exclaimed, “I wish I could shout eternity through all the streets of Sydney!”  Since then Arthur Stace had been writing eternity all over Sydney, helping to spread the call of the Lord.  Arthur continued to write eternity all over the city, over half a million times.  And even after his death Sydneysiders have taken on this rich tradition by preserving the original words and sharing the message with the world at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics (it was displayed in lights across Sydney Harbour Bridge). 

Statue of Queen Victoria

From there we moved on oddly enough to a shopping center, The Queen Victoria Building or the QVB (they like to abbreviate everything here).  It’s a very old building that has had many different purposes over the years.  The inside has been redone and it is now a high end shopping mall.  This statue of the queen hasn’t always been here.  It was in storage in some other country and they didn’t want it so Sydney took it and put it outside the QVB. 

This picture hates me and for some reason I can't rotate it sorry.

This is Sydney Tower.  Our tour guide told us that from the top on a clear day you can see all the way to the Blue Mountains (2 hours away).  The cables around the bottom of the tower help to keep it balanced in the winds and if all of those fail to work there is water contained at the top that acts as a counter weight to keep the tower from swaying.

View of St. Mary's from Hyde Park

This cathedral is the largest in Australia.  The original church was destroyed in a fire.  They rebuilt it over several decades.  It was only just finished in 2000, just in time for the Olympics. 

 Learning about Governor Macquarie and all of things named after him.  He was the one who believed that Sydney could be a great city and not just a colony of convicts.

The Australian Coat of Arms

From there we moved on to Martin Place.  Where we found the Australian Coat of Arms.  The Kangaroo and the Emu were picked to be on the seal because neither can walk backwards (weird right?).

Our tour guide must have really liked The Matrix because he kept showing up sites where the movie was filmed.  We saw the fountain where the lady in red distracts Neo. Or something like that… This is the building that the helicopter crashed into in The Matrix. Pretty cool right? Yeah…

The Opera House from underneath Harbour Bridge

We walked a little farther to the bridge where we had a great view of the Opera House.  Then we finished the tour at Circular Quay.

I hope you enjoyed the tour.  If you come to visit maybe I’ll show you some of these places for real!