More of my Sydney adventures – visiting the Sydney Maritime Musuem

I’m blogging about Sydney Maritime Museum today! I’m have been kinda slacking on the sydney’s posts. errmm, it’s already been more than ONE MONTH since i landed back in singapore! Hmmm, where did all that time fly to?

anyhow, i am inspired to continue blogging on my adventures because it was a really, really, fun trip and at the same time, i had a gf who messaged me and said she got inspired by my posts and booked herself and her family on trip! (hello and waves to P!) I think i’m doing good to boost sydney’s tourism. Heh. heh.

To catch my earlier posts on sydney, you can read about my arrival, sights at circular quay where we saw the harbour bridge and opera house, us trying out ippudo ramen in sydney, checking out darling harbour, loading up on the seafood at sydney’s fish market, soaking in sydney’s panoramic view up on the tower eye and going on the skywalk and playing tourists at st. andrews cathedral and chinatown.

**warning: lengthy post & loads of pictures ahead!**

on day 4 of our trip, we headed for sydney’s maritime museum! it was a must-go, must-see place for me, simply for one really simple reason. i so want to go into a submarine and see for myself how it is like!

the entrance ticket is aud$7 (adults) & aud$3.50 (child) for the galleries and exhibitions only but the big ticket gives you access to check out all the boats (including submarine) as well as the galleries and exhibitions, so that’s what we got. the big ticket. there were so many things to see with the big ticket – vietnam fishing boat (vintage!), really old sailing boats (think black pearl and captain jack sparrow kinda ships), modern warships, submarine and a bunch of some other smaller boats. we purchased our tickets in the same morning at the museum itself and there wasn’t a queue at all (it was a weekday though).

it was a lovely morning the day we visited and it was like the sun rays were telling us that was the place to be!

its sooooo pretty. i totally love the endless blue skies!

first up on the list is the cape bowling green lighthouse! little trivia that you might want to know. The museums, exhibits and boats are all manned by volunteers and they may or may not open each exhibit, depending on the volunteers on that day. THe lighthouse is one of those that i know is frequently closed so be sure to check beforehand in the morning of your visit to see if the lighthouse will be opened if you want to visit it so that you can be sure to make the best out of your ticket. You can make a call to check and i recommend this to be your first destination of all exhibits, because:
– there is a capacity limit of 12 person in the entire lighthouse and there is usually no one in the mornings.
– the queues starts to build up nearer to noon time and it gets very congested.
– the lighthouse may close any time when there isnt enough volunteers

or so, i heard. thought i might as well share. you’re welcome.

do bear with me as i show you all the pictures of the lighthouse alone! It’s pretty interesting that the lighthouse is only 22m tall, and yet, it serves such an important function.

cindy trooping up!
me, halfway up and glancing down.

we are pretty delighted to have the entire lighthouse to ourselves!

well worn steps.

tackling a 1.8m tall ladder…

and emerging from it! the space isnt very big as you can see..

here’s what you see at the top! the lantern room.

i was truly amazed at how the light from one tiny bulb could be magnified so many times, and so far away.

the gears that are in place..

us, with the friendly tour guide, Eddie Gorden who kick started our lovely morning with a run down about the lighthouse, the various sights around, the history and also what are some of the places that we can and should visit!

the panoramic views from the lighthouse.

We lingered at the lighthouse for a while, enjoying the slow morning before moving on to check out the other exhibits.

the boats in the image above are all the exhibits.the next boat that we checked out left me pretty much in awe…

james cooks’ HMB Endeavour. i honestly, didnt think boats like that still exist other than in movies! i later found out that this was a close replica of the actual boat.

loads and loads of ropes to hold up the masts.

intricate web of ropes of all sizes.

yeah, i was really fascinated.

guess what’s this? the toilets on board the ship, or the sailors’ lavatories, which are quaintly named ‘seats of ease’. how queer!

us, basking in the front deck of the ship with the bow right behind us.

descending into the bottom decks of the ship.

how the eating quarters looked like!

me sitting on one of them tables. See the hammock above my head, that’s the ‘bed’ for the crew.

i’m in a half squat position because the ceilings are really low, because captain cook split the boat space and created a mezzanine level in the boat to create more space for the crew on board, or more specifically, cabins for the officers and the officers’ mess.

the great cabin. I sat around the area and listened to the story of the ship and its captain by the passionate volunteers and felt like i was on a voyage.

cindy climbing out of the bottom deck.

and one last shot with the ship before moving on to the next!

the next boat is a destroyer, and its huge! it’s the biggest boat in the picture below, and is about 4 times the size of the grey boat at the bottom right of the pic.

HMAS Vampire, the destroyer. or what we know as the warship.
loads of big guns and weapons on board!

cindy checking out the captain’s seat at the bridge of the destroyer. we both tried sitting on it too!

i pretty much breezed through the warship, checking out the various rooms like sick bay, kitchen, and loads of the different weapons on board, but honestly, I couldn’t wait and couldn’t contain my excitement to check out the submarine so we cut short the tour on the destroyer and popped over to the submarine.

and guess what? am sooooo gonna boast to my uncle that i have been in a real submarine because i remember him saying that he would want to check out a real submarine one day when we were in a kiddy ride sorta submarine many years ago in the US. haha. betcha that his next travel destination will be sydney. i’m definitely doing my bit to boost sydney’s tourism!

here’s the submarine!

i find it a black beauty, a black stunning beauty.
cindy on the top of the submarine. it was a little weird, walking on a ‘platform’ that is actually the top of the submarine.

making my way down and feeling a little nervous! first time getting into a submarine!

the first room that we arrived in. i arrived when the guide already started talking so i wasn’t sure what the room was meant for. is it like the torpedo room? *clueless*

water-tight doors across all the different chambers and we can to crawl it through the porthole-like doors.

bunk beds that line the corridors of the submarine in one of the chambers.

honestly, i kept thinking if the submarine crew has a size requirement to work onboard, because.. the aisles are so narrow!

super, tiny toilet on board the submarine.

peering through the periscope and was really stoked to see the west fields signage on the tallest building in sydney, the sydney tower!

honestly, i look cheesy with the peace sign here. lol.

the one thing that really amazed me is the number of dials there are on board. honestly, i wouldn’t have been able to remember which is for what if i am the crew.

i think this is the engine room. see what i mean? dials all over!

and so many control dials. this would be the radio room. amaze the shit outta me. how do anyone know which one to turn??

i loved how this looked. the submarine is called H.M.A.S “Onslow”, built in 1969.

and that was it! by the time we finished the submarine, we didn’t have the time nor patience to check out the galleries because we were so famished! it was way beyond lunch time so we quickly went to find some food (which was mcdonalds, by the way… for the minions).

Ending this post here! Thank you for reading till the end. i would think this is pretty boring if ships/boats aint your thing.

Here’s more posts on what you can do in Sydney:

– Madame Tussauds in Sydney
– Sydney Sea Life Aquarium
– Sydney Maritime Museum
– Circular Quay
– Darling Harbour
– Sydney’s Fish Market
– Sydney’s Tower Eye & Skywalk
– Chinatown & St. Andrews Catherdral in Sydney

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Thanks for reading! I promise, i’ll write more often! (having 2 kids really reduces the time i have on my hands by A LOT!)

Linking up with Mabel’s timeout thursday (even though its not the first thursday of the month anymore).

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