Last weekend I hopped on a fast boat and went around to 4 tiny islands: Fort Denison, Clark Island, Shark Island and Garden Island. Fort Denison also used to be known as Pinchgut Island as convicts were left on the island without food for 1 week as punishment and when a fort was built there in the 19th century, construction took so long to build that the cannons went obsolete when it was finally finished. The island hopping was actually part of Crave Sydney, a month long festival, so there were performers on the other islands.

Shark Island is called that for it’s shape, but it used to be a quarantine island for animals entering australia. This time they had puppeteers with dinosaurs and mystical creatures, including men in t-rex and stegasaurus costumes – good fun. No, barney the dinosaur was nowhere in sight. Also it’s a gorgeous place for having a picnic, sydney weather was in fine form that day after weeks of rain and wind, sydney dazzles when the sun is out

On Clark Island they had Aboriginal cultural performances (dances, didgeridoo etc), art and some talks/demonstrations about how they used the plants and coastal tides. I really enjoyed it, it was a good insight into how they really lived in harmony with nature. The sad reality is that within 3 years of the european settlers arriving in sydney, an entire aboriginal tribe in the harbour were wiped out by the european disease, smallpox. Disease would wipe out 50% of the aboriginals in australia and their babies taken away (the stolen generation) by the australian government to “civilize” them..or to breed them out. No wonder most aboriginals hate white people so much.

But of course they didn’t mention this on that day but had activities for the kids and we all enjoyed the sun and the beautiful harbour. Last stop was the naval museum that had 1 of the 3 Japanese mini-subs that snuck into the harbour during WW3, got stuck in the nets and torpedoed the wrong boat. 1 sub got lost heading towards Narabeen beach instead of Bondi Beach and the japanese crew committed harakiri (suicide) when found.

All in all, It was a good day out, I really enjoyed it Hope you like the pics, fingers crossed that summer comes soon, the weather has been horrible lately. Well..horrible for sydney anyway

x

Shi