More neighbourhoods

The host of my AirBnB provided a list of his favourite places in Sydney and I have been to most of them. One favourite is Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair, named after a spot that was also the favourite of the Governor’s wife in 1810 as it has great views of the city. One of his favourite suburbs is Potts Point and I took a long, roundabout route to get there passing through an underprivileged neighbourhood and a homeless camp under one of the bridge spans. I did eventually get to Potts Point which was an upscale, gentrified neighbourhood. Adjacent to this area was Kings Cross so I walked through that neighbourhood also. It was once the red-light district but in 2014 the government introduced “lockout laws” meaning bars had to close at 1:30 am to reduce alcohol-fuelled violence. As a result many bars closed shop but the area still has a roughness to it. There is a safe injection site here but also some art galleries and a theatre thrown into the mix. Chinatown actually had a more red-light feel to it with massage parlours and a hotel that offered one-hour reservations! It was the hottest day at 29 as well as the most humid day of the week and I was exhausted by the end of my walk.

At 11 o’clock a fierce storm blew through Sydney and the surrounding area. Being on the 27th floor it looked like the intense lightning was at the same level as I was. I wanted to take photos but the wind was so strong that the single-pane glass windows were rattling and I know to stay away from windows during a storm. I swear the 45 story building was swaying. The heavy rainfall was horizontal and I could hear things below being tossed about. I later learned that there were wind gusts of 110 kmh and 74,000 lightning strikes were recorded! Sadly, a 37 year old businessman coming out of a pub in The Rocks area was hit in the chest by a large propane cylinder that was blown off of an apartment balcony. He later died. How freaky is that?! I was glad that the storm only lasted 15 minutes and the power failure didn’t affect this building but did affect 80,000 homes.Read more