Fish ice cream

I decided to have a camera free day on Saturday so that I could look and appreciate rather than try to capture for posterity. We bought ourselves Day Trippers which give unlimited use of ferries, buses and trains and set off for the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Over a coffee we studied the gallery map and decided that the Aboriginal Section was the one that we wanted to concentrate on, only to discover that it was closed till well into 2009 while the escalators were being replaced. We did find a small section of Aboriginal Art which was marvellous and inspired me to get my drawing things out of the suitcase for the first time this holiday. There was also a gallery of paintings depicting the bush as we have seen it and the outback which we will not have time to get to.

We decided against going in to the special exhibitions – Monet – which Elaine has already seen in London and The Hidden Buddhas, but there were some other beautiful Buddhas that we did see.

We walked from the gallery to the Queen Victoria Buildings (QVB) an extremely grand shopping centre, rather like the Victorian Quarter in Leeds but far larger and far grander. There were four floors with the cheapest being at the bottom and the designer clothes at the top. The Christmas tree went through the centre space and so was on all four floors. We had lunch on the bottom floor and by the time we reached the top it was time for tea, where I had conventional tea and cheesecake, but Elaine had an elaborate Earl grey tea with mauve flowers and green tea ice cream – which she said tasted of fish. There are some advantages in being conservative in choice of food.

By the time we got to the top of the QVB we had gathered so many souvenirs and presents that I had to go back to the basement to find the ATMs and restock the purse and wallet. We will have to abandon our reading material in Sydney to allow for the weight of goods that will be added to our suitcases. The Australian and in particular the aboriginal goods at the QVB were beautiful. If we had more money and a greater weight allowance on the plane I suspect we would be coming back with innumerable pictures and objets d’art. But the point of the camera free day was to remind me to hold everything firmly in my memory. I can take that everywhere and there were certainly many new treasures to enjoy today.