Sydney is of course a big modern city, but it has precious few attractive modern buildings – most of the office blocks are in the 1970s hideous style and almost entirely devoid of character. But there are lots of older buildings left, some dating back almost to the time of the First Fleet in 1788. The UK had lost its American colonies by then, and decided on the advice of Cook and Banks to colonise Australia, using a mixture of military, free settlers and convicts. The first such fleet was appropriately called the First Fleet. Australia was long ashamed of its convict past, but now being able to trace your ancestors back to the First Fleet is a matter of great pride and has resulted in a flourishing First Fleet Association.

Here is Macquarie’s Hyde Park Barracks of 1817, now a quite marvellous museum:

 

 

 

These were not military, but convict, barracks – a quite revolutionary concept at the time. The building has been thoroughly studied archaeologically and restored to show its construction and every phase of its fascinating history. A quite outstanding museum.

Governor Macquarie is celebrated in Australia as an enlightened, progressive and benign governor who did much to improve the colony and the lot of the convicts. He arrived in 1810 to replace the despised Bligh (he of Bounty fame) who had been deposed by an army coup in the famous Rum Rebellion of 1808, and is now regarded by many as the father of modern Australia (it says so on his tomb in Mull). In fact it was he who formally adopted the name of Australia for the country.

His wife was also active in the colony. This is Mrs Macquarie’s chair from 1816:

 

 

She caused a road to be built around a headland in the harbour to provide work, and this chair to be carved so that she could admire the view.

Here is the original marker post from which distances were measured:

 

 

Sydney also has some fine survivors from its later more prosperous times. This was the Customs House:

 

 

The Treasury:

 

 

The Town Hall:

 

 

The story of how the young colony survived and eventually thrived is a fascinating one, far to complicated to relate here but well told in Sydney. We liked the place and its history.