Tuesday began with a walking tour of The Rocks, which was the first neighborhood established by the British in Australia back in the 1790s. It was, of course, a penal colony, although it only had one jail cell; escape was pretty much impossible with a bay full of sharks and a bush full of other things that will kill you. We learned a lot of interesting facts, including that one of the convicts sent to Sydney, Mary Reibey–who was only 13 when she arrived!–became a very successful business person and philanthropist as an adult and is now on the Australian $20 bill. We also learned that the different patterns you see on the stones on the buildings were the unique marks of the convicts who built them and were the way the supervisors kept track of how hard each convict worked each day.

After our tour, we set out for the Art Gallery of New South Wales. (New South Wales is the state Sydney is in.) On the way, we walked through the lovely and peaceful botanical gardens.

We thoroughly enjoyed the contemporary half of the art gallery, which had some amazing art work. We decided to skip the other half, which had more classical art.

We stopped in at the Australian Museum next, but I was at museum capacity by that point, so we just did a quick walk through. They had some pretty scary dinosaurs!

We had a bit of a rest at our hotel and then went for a delicious seafood dinner on the harbor.

Next up: A trip to the Blue Mountains!