Sydney, Australia. Tuesday 19th December 2006.

This morning Ben and I headed out for brunch at il gianfornaio in the Westfield Shopping Mall in Hornsby. The focus of our visit was to see the Hornsby Water Sculpture, Man Time and Environment by Victor Cusack.

This Chinese Water Wheel Clock is 23 metres in diameter, weighing approximately one tonne and constructed from bronze and toughened plate glass. It incorporates some twenty articulated counterweighted buckets.

The design source is a wooden clock that was originally built in China between
1088 - 92 AD as part of an observatory tower.

The sculpture is actually the largest water driven pendulum clock ever built and the third largest pendulum clock in the world. It has the same 4 second completed time cycle, but a heavier counterweight (350kg), than Big Ben.

We then headed off to do some shopping...sadly buying matching tops, before it was off to Joseph's to have my hair cut into that traditional Australian design of the mullet. This was a great barbers right down to the use of the old-fashioned open razor!

Heading back into Wahroonga we went for afternoon tea at the Coonanbarra Cafe before visiting the Fisk Memorial commemorating the first direct wireless message from England to Australia.

This message was sent under the direction of the Marchese Marconi from the Marconi Wireless Station in Carnarvon, Wales and was received by E.T. Fisk in the experimental wireless station attached to his residence "Lucania" on September 22nd 1918.

The message was sent from Wales by The Right Hon. W.M.Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia and read...

"I have just returned from a visit to the battlefields where the glorious valour and dash of the Australian troops saved Amiens and forced back the legions of the enemy filled with greater admiration than ever for these glorious men and more convinced than ever that it is the duty of their fellow-citizens to keep these magnificent battalions up to their full strength".