Friday January 5th 2007. Sydney. NSW.

Today I take myself off into the city. My first stop is to be the iconic Coca Cola sign in King's Cross which I will view again from the top of the Park Regis building this evening.

Next stop is the beautiful de Lacy building of St Vincent's Hospital. In 1838 five Irish Sisters of Charity migrated to Sydney, Australia. The Sisters mission was clear: to assist the poor and disadvantaged. Their early work included helping convict women and children at Parramatta, at what was then known as the Female Factory; assisting families during the 1844 influenza epidemic and caring for prisoners and their families at inner-city Darlinghurst Gaol.

In 1857 the Sisters of Charity established St Vincent's at Potts Point, as a free hospital for all people, but especially for the poor. Three of the Hospital's founding Sisters were professional nurses, having trained in France, and they brought their knowledge to the colony.

From its humble origin of 22 beds, the demand for St Vincent's services led it to move to its current site at Darlinghurst (Victoria Street) in 1870.

Since then the hospital has grown into a leading medical, surgical and research facility and has been the forefront of innovation in areas including cardiac, lung and bone marrow transplantation. It provides a full range of adult diagnostic and clinical services.

In 1991 St Vincent's Hospital was incorporated under its own Act of Parliament and is now known as St Vincent's Hospital Limited. In April 1996 St Vincent's joined the Sisters of Charity Health Service, which has 17 health care facilities and is Australia's largest not-for-profit health provider.

Today, St Vincent's is a principal teaching hospital of the University of New South Wales and has close affiliations with a number of other universities, such as Australian Catholic University.

I spend the afternoon in the wonderful Berkelouw Books in Paddington having a coffee and watching the world go by. It is here that I meet Tony, an English teacher at Marsden High with a passion for architecture and a genuine interest in my project.

He offers to give me a guided tour of the wonderful streets of both the Paddington and King's Cross areas which are an eclectic mix of the city's architectural styles. I am particularly impressed by the terraces of houses with their verandahs, French doors and shutters; designed at a time before air conditioning when maximum air flow and minimum sunlight would have been a priority.

Next stop is Woolloomooloo and the Finger Wharf. Standing on 3,600 piles, the Wharf is the largest wooden structure in the world at 400m long and 63m wide. The Sydney Harbour Trust built Finger Wharf between 1911 and 1915 to the design of H.D.Walsh the Trust's Engineer-in-Chief and it is a masterpiece of industrial architecture.

Home today to the ultra trendy hotel BLUE and luxury apartments this is a beautiful conversion where you can still see the ghosts of the agricultural workers and immigrants who once thronged these halls.

Next stop is the Botanical Gardens where I get to enjoy a stunning view of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge and where I discover the site of the pavilion built for Sydney's first International Exhibition on 17th September 1879. Essentially a wooden structure the Garden Palace was 244 metres long stretching from Conservatorium of Music to the State Library and topped with a dome 30 metres in diameter and 64 metres high. Just like that other great Pavilion, the Crystal Palace in London this pavilion was destroyed by fire; in Sydney's case in 1882.

The highlight of my time in the Botanic Gardens is seeing the bats take to flight as we near 8pm.

From here we make our way back towards Hyde Park taking in the Archibald Fountain which commemorates the alliance between Australia and France in World War I. This Francois Sicard piece is truly beautiful. Just across the park is David Jones, Sydney's leading department store.

We head back to Tony's apartment at Park Regis. This residential skyscrapper was built in 1967 and was not only the city's first but at the time it was the highest residential building in the Southern Hemisphere. We head to the 42nd floor to take in the most spectacular of views. As the sunsets across the city you have Hyde Park and the Botanical Gardens spread out in a blanket of green below, the expanse of the harbour and ocean ahead and the city with all its urbanisation all around. No where but Sydney can you have such a contrast in close proximity.

We are joined by Dr Keith, a psychiatrist at St Vincent's, and take a rooftop walk. Park Regis is one of the few residential buildings to have public space on top. Today's builders build penthouses; in the 60's they built swimming pools, communal areas and arguably the laundry with the best view in the world.

As the boys head off to the movies, I head home. It is a long ride out to Wahroonga!