Road trip - Sydney

Driving from Brisbane to Sydney in one day is a bit of an achievement for us - but we did it last Sunday in a bit under 12 hours. It was fine but not something we'd want to repeat in a hurry. The Meriton at Chatswood was a great choice for us (13th floor) for our 3 night stay because it's right on the Pacific Highway, and we didn't have to negotiate the city traffic to get there at the end of a long day.

We were more than happy to reacquaint ourselves with our Tokyo favourite Ippudo (sorry Haruko) at the Chatswood Dining District for our meal that night. 

 I don't think they do Poke bowls in Tokyo though (but this one was the best ever - so maybe they should!)

 We headed into Darlinghurst on Monday - to the historic National Art School on Forbes Street.

 The reason this building looks so solid is that it's original purpose from 1822 - 1914 was  to house some of Australia's most notorious criminals - as the old Darlinghurst Gaol. There used to be gallows above the main gate (see pic above) so the public could watch the hangings!

But we were here to meet up with my friend Tania - nearing the end of her Master's (Sculpture) degree and nearing completion of her HUGE and ambitious room installation - a 3D response to her experiences growing up in Belfast during The Troubles.

 It's a massive work, in size, scale and emotional impact. Its physicality is awesome. Tania has had to cut, lift, drill every piece of the supporting steel structure and cut, burn, drill and fix every length of those timber blocks (and collect them from the mill too).

 There's still a few more months work to do on this....... Tania showed us the process of burning the timber blocks out in the open courtyard .........

 Although the main installation represents months and months of work and investigation - there's so much more that Tania has been working on too ......

 And that is without the 50 page Exegesis required for the Masters of Fine Arts degree. We were in awe of what she has undertaken and achieved already!

On our second day in Sydney we visited friends in Chiswick for lunch and caught the magical "Muriel's Wedding" at the Lyric Theatre in the evening. It was a full day but it was a magic way to end it at this joyous and funny night of musical theatre (not as dark as the 1994 film on which it is based).

 Rob is responsible for all these pics of me. I couldn't talk him out of taking this last one on our road trip - this morning at our fave Pool Cafe at Maroubra - first stop on our final day of driving back to Canberra.