Our Sydney Hotel, the Sheraton on the Park, faced a large landscaped plot of land called Hyde Park.

On the other side of the park and to the south was the Australian Museum, described by our guide book as being primarily devoted to natural history. After a short rest in our hotel room, we stirred ourselves and headed in that general direction. In the process of crossing Hyde Park, we encountered the Archibald Fountain, regarded by many as the finest public fountain in Australia. It was completed by the French artist François Sicard in 1932 and was funded by magazine owner J.F. Archibald, after whom it was named. It features figures from Roman mythology, including Apollo (the center of attention), Diana and Theseus. And there are water-spewing turtles.



Directly across the park from our hotel was St. Mary's Cathedral, the seat of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney. The current structure succeeds an original structure that burned down in 1865 and a temporary wooden replacement which burned down in 1869. Construction began in 1868, the nave was finally completed in 1928, and the cathedral was designated a "minor basilica" by Pope Pius XI in 1930. But construction continued off and on, with the crypt being finished in 1961 and the façade's spires being built in 2000. We passed the cathedral on our way to the museum, taking pictures but not stopping for a visit, as we wanted to have time to look through the museum before the closing time of 5 PM.


We continued on to the museum and found it to indeed be a natural history museum, with some aboriginal art and artifacts also included on the ground floor.


There was a large whale skeleton suspended from the (high) ceiling in the lobby, as well as dinosaur skeletons and stuffed animals (both extinct and non-extinct) on the second floor.



There were a few live animals on display, but most were no longer among the living, with a large room displaying many stuffed birds and another room featuring a large exhibit of skeletons of many creatures (including human ones).






Finally, we found an impressive mineral exhibit, which is where we were when the public address came alive and told us to leave so the museum could close.


Which we did, retracing our steps back to the hotel.

When we decided to go out looking for dinner, we were disappointed to discover that the food court and nearly all business in the downtown area seemed to have already closed for the night (apparently this happens at 6 PM). Recalling our luck with the Asian food court in Auckland, we boarded the monorail (using the all-day passes we'd bought earlier) and headed for Chinatown, which had a nearby monorail stop. Sure enough, we actually found two full food courts in Chinatown which were still going strong, as were most of the shops in the area. We satisfied both our need for food and Nella and Connie's need to shop and returned to the hotel via the monorail.



This finished our day in Sydney and we went to bed early. In the morning we planned on catching a train that would take us out of the city, into the natural world to the east. Our destination would be the Blue Mountains.