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Today is Australia Day, a nationwide excuse to go out and enjoy Australia's attractions, mostly for free. We're going to try the Australia Museum then some things down in the harbour. The Australia Museum is hosting a Chinese Dinosaurs exhibition (which does cost AU$5) where you do get to see the remarkably plastic looking series of small tablets with the evolution of the feathered dinosaurs on them. Looking at them, the fossilised leg bones always seemed much bigger than the artists impressions suggested and the location of feathers does require a little imagination in some cases. The bright blues and reds on the model dinosaurs certainly required some imagination. Upstairs they had the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2002 exhibition with 50 or 60 fabulous pictures. If any of mine come out half as good as these then I'll be quite happy. Interestingly, probably not, I would say that over half the photos were shot with a Canon EOS (of some mark) and at least 80% were caught on Fujichrome film which I'd never heard of.

By this time, of course, we'd spent far too long in the museum to see the Red Berets splash into the harbour nor the tall ships race under the bridge. Not to worry, we wandered into The Rocks on the west side of Circular Quay (at the southern end of the Harbour Bridge) and had some nice German food in one of the shockingly expensive restaurants. Failing to find the microbrewery we headed into the side streets of town looking for an Internet shop to transfer money etc. A long walk and the second time lucky (the first was closing) we entered the Web Lounge where they've turned a basement into a war room of terminals. Again, Asian run, with lots of games being played, headphones on so as not to disturb -- with the occaissional What the fuck? blurted out to all in a strange nasal Asian English accent.

The bus driver home kept everyone happy, sorting problems, redirecting, local knowledge as a hotch potch of people came aboard.

Chez Mark, Sydney S33.90526 E151.26016 Elev. 72m