While VS was in Sydney the average price of a Sydney house reached $1m for the first time. The VS was moored in one of the more exclusive areas (though cheap for a boat) where houses were worth much more than that:

 

 

This is part of Middle Harbour, a ria with steep sandstone banks rising about 50-100m out of the sea. It is only modern building techniques that have allowed these shores to be built upon, and now this area contains the most valuable real estate in Sydney. These houses are worth many millions of dollars and are constantly being improved. And most have their own private funicular because if you’re that rich you can’t be expected to be walking up and down stairs all the time. So this is how the average well-heeled Sydneysider accesses their private jetty:

 

 

Many have more than one ‘station’ to access various levels of the house.

Sydney has masses of quite delightful Victorian houses too. Here’s a typical one:

 

 

Sadly these beautiful houses are all too often cheek by jowl with the most ghastly modern concrete monstrosity. I am at a loss to understand how we could build beautiful stylish houses in the 1860s but seemed to have entirely lost the knack by the 1960s.