Darling Harbour 13th November 2014

Walked over to Darling Harbour today principally to see the Australian National Maritime Museum and passed a Chinese Garden offering "Lipton" tea and scones. Annabel who works for Unilever Research on tea will be impressed! What ever happened to Chinese Oolong tea and other varieties?

Chinese Garden

The main attractions of the museum were a replica of the "Endeavour", the boat that James Cook sailed to Australia, and a rebuilt cargo boat from the 1800s called the "James Craig".

Endeavour replica

James Craig Tall Ship

Both boats were manned by enthusiastic volunteer guides who could reel off a tonne of facts. We were closely followed by packs of young school children, wearing bright uniforms.  They certainly had an advantage below decks on the Endeavour where the headroom in parts was significantly reduced to accommodate the extra crew for the journey to see the transit of Venus. The boat was originally a coal ship.

Although I have sailed for a fair few years in yachts with “heads” I never knew the origin of the term. On the Endeavour these are clearly visible on both sides of the bow with makeshift toilet paper – see photo below!

The heads and makeshift toilet paper! 

The James Craig tall ship was impressive and had been rescued from the bare skeleton of its steel hull and painstakingly restored over a number of years with significant donations. Even today there were volunteers constructing the ship’s rope ladder with meticulous attention to detail.

The James Craig carries over 1000 square metres of sail, which compared to my windsurf sails of 3-6m sq. is awesome.

Both ships are actively sailed by a trained crew and members of the public can join them.