We are off for a 90 minute walking tour of the rocks. When you are standing at Circular Quay station looking out at where all the ferries are coming and going, the Opera House Park is to the right and The Rocks is to the left of the cove. The Rocks is also where Sydney started as a city. Now mind you, Sydney is not all that old and the Aborigines have plenty of reasons to hate America. You see, the British explorer Captain Cook discovered Australia in the late 1700’s just as England was at war with America. What with loosing the war, the English had to find a new distant location to send their criminals. The colonies were the prime location as it benefited the crown by getting rid of these unsavories and making them work to build the new colony at the same time.
So long about 1780, the English started sending their convicts to Australia for either 7 or 14 years hard labor. Men, women, and children who were all found guilty of what we would now consider petty crimes, stealing, failure to pay, prostitution and the like were sent to Australia as a penal colony where they would work off their sentence either supporting the lords and govenors or pounding the rocks carving stone to build the new colony. It was a hard life.
here you can see the pick marks in the stone. Each convict had his own style and every stone cut has this fingerprint of uniqueness.
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