Sheep and sleep

We chose to forgo the Anzac Day Parade in Sydney today, although we watched the highlights on TV. Instead, we visited a seriously ill relation in hospital, before driving home to Batemans Bay. As we had some time to spare, we detoured along the Grand Pacific Drive, with its exciting Sea Cliff Bridge, where the road curves out over the ocean on high concrete piers. You'd think I would have a superblip to show for that, but I don't. Sorry failure. Must go back and try again.

I have fallen back on a shot I took this morning of one of the voids in the Oaks Goldsbrough Apartments, where we stayed last night. The enormous building is a converted wool warehouse from the days when Australia lived off the sheep's back and Darling Harbour, a stone's throw away, was a shipping-trade hub and not the tourist playground it is today. We were not disappointed. If the Oaks' galleries and walkways were reminiscent of an old-style prison, we found our cell spacious, well appointed and comfortable.

The place dates back to 1883, when one Richard Goldsbrough built a warehouse in Pyrmont Street for storing bales of wool. It had its own railway siding, hydraulic lifts for moving goods between levels, and boasted the largest floor area of any building in the Colony of New South Wales. It burned down in 1935, and the present building replaced it. By the 1970s, the woolstores in the area were being abandoned as brokers shifted their businesses to the new Yennora Wool Centre, west of Parramatta. The Goldsborough Mort Woolstores were converted into apartments in 1995. The ironbark beams and tallowwood floors are a fitting reminder of the building's history.