Fly Ted Down Under Journeys through the land of Oz

Sydney Day 2: Hyde Park Barracks, ANZAC, Pylon, Olympic Park AND Luna Park

AUSTRALIA | Friday, 4 March 2011 | Views [424]

The official poster for the Australian Grand Prix, in comic-book style. This was a novelty at first but it has since shown up everywhere i've been including a huge display in Federation Square in Melbourne.

Hyde Park is one of the main parks in central Sydney and the closest to the Central Business District (CBD). To the east are museums, government buildings and then the very substantial Botanical Gardens and Domain. To the west the big office towers come right up to the edge of the park.

In the middle though there is a beautiful canopy of trees covering a central parade, you can see it is like a tunnel to walk through. This view is north towards the Archibald Fountain at the end.

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When the first convicts arrived in Sydney they lived in tents and houses scattered around the city, and were expected to report for convict duty each day (at that time escape and survival in Australia was pretty much a death sentence anyway).

Eventually though the convicts were too hard to control and so in 1819 the Hyde Park Barracks was built, officially as a 'boarding house' but a prison in most respects.

The convicts could thus be kept under strict rules in one place and easily roused for their many hours of work each day,

About 50,000 men and boys lived here for the next 30 years until 1848 when the convict system ended and the Barracks closed.

The clock above was apparently ominous for convicts, who did have an hour or two of free time in the evenings and the odd day off, but had to report home by 9pm or the gates were locked, and they were in BIG trouble.

The name under the clock is

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Fly Ted Down Under Journeys through the land of Oz

Sydney Day 2: Hyde Park Barracks, ANZAC, Pylon, Olympic Park AND Luna Park

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