Thursday 17 January An Alladin's cave

This was an 'and then we' days, from Alladin's to historical sights and finishing in a bar at the Opera house.

View over Cockatoo island

ship building dock

oldest dock in Australia

It all began early with a short train trip out of the central city to find an engineer who was going to help with some fixing on our autopilot unit. Robby's Engineering came as a recommendation from a long term local resident in the anchorage and finding him was the equivalent of finding a golden needle in a haystack. Out to the 'burbs, turn right, turn left into a lane, find a furniture restoration warehouse next to a building site, go through the warehouse and down the stairs at the back and there we found Robby in a windowless backroom, crammed, packed with light engineering treasures floor to ceiling, wall to wall which he buys when factories close and what treasure to find. He extracted a tiny screw which had sheered off inside, fabricated tiny new parts, fixed something else and made new an essential part of the autopilot unit. It took two hours but I think he enjoyed the challenge, did a wonderful job.

bar with a view

And then because we were out and it was a beautiful day we headed back into the city and caught a ferry to Cockatoo Island. Cockatoo island in the middle of the river up river from the bridge has been a prison for convicts, a reform school for girls, a training centre for boys, a naval dockyard, submarine base, turbine manufacturer and now a tourist attraction with camping facilities. Phew! We covered all with the help of an audio tour in 2 hours. The only hitch with the audio was one radio set and two sets of earphones...and two people walking in different directions. At times each of us had the plugs pulled out from ears.

And then we had a text mesaage from friend Neil to see if we were free to meet for after work (for him) drinks at the touristy Opera Bar with a view of the bridge. We're tourists. We said yes.