Wednesday 10th January 2007. Sydney. NSW.

Up and out early Sandra and I are off to explore. We head out through Anderson Park which on July 17th 1934 became the runway for Charles Kingsford Smith and his navigator Gordon Taylor who took off for Mascot Airport in the Lady Southern Cross. They were later to make the first trans-pacific flight from Australia to the USA.

Our walk takes us through Kirribilli and past both Admiralty House and Kirribilli House before heading down to the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. We head now to see the Sydney Flying Squadron Ltd; the oldest open boat sailing club in Australia before enjoying the beautiful Milsons Park.

Up to Auntie Cher's house in Southern Cross Gardens to see the replica propeller from a Lockheed Altair. The housing complex here stands in what were the grounds of the Kingsford-Smith home. The Lady itself was lost with Smithy and Tommy Pethybridge in the Bay of Bengal on November 8th/9th 1935.

I spend the most wonderful afternoon with Sandra as we put the world to rights and lunched by the pool.

Taking the ferry into town from Neutral Bay I meet Tony at the InterContinental Hotel for afternoon tea in The Cortile; a wonderful courtyard setting in what was the State Treasury Building for New South Wales. The urn in the centre of the courtyard c.1870, is from the garden of Locko Park a Victorian country house near Derby in England.

My next stop is the Conservatorium of Music outside which stands a wonderful statue of King Edward VII on horseback. The building was originally stables for Government House and should make us think of the fact that at a time when the majority of subjects were living in abject poverty, without even the most basic sanitary conditions, the horses lived like Kings?

This Greenway designed stables complex was built by convict workers between 1817 and 1821 with conversion into the Conservatorium beginning in 1913 and opening in 1915.

The permanent exhibits inside the building are excellent. Indeed it is here that you can see evidence of the most intact convict built road system. Back on Bridge Street and we see a wonderful example of grand Victorian municipal building in the form of the Chief Secretary's Building.

My walking tour with Tony this evening takes in a myriad of wonderful buildings.

We head out to the former General Post Office (now the Westin Hotel) to see an interesting fusion building which works though it is not the most sympathetic fusion I have seen in the city.

The GPO was designed by the colonial architect James Barnet. Barnet was colonial architect here from 1862-1890. He is another Scot being born in Arbroath in 1827, he died in December of 1904.

My next stop is The Cenotaph and then we head into the wonders of art deco at 2 Martin Place, Australasia Chambers, where Tony and I behave like naughty school boys taking the wonderful old cage lift to every floor. Tony had the brains to check out what each floor was about and then apologised each time we hit the wrong floor...

Oh Sorry, we were looking for X...That's the next floor up Sir...Oh, Thank-you.

The Royal Australian Regiment Memorial is our next major stop. It is here that I learn about the Darwin Mobile Force (DMF) that was raised in Sydney in November 1938 for the defence of the Darwin area. The unit arrived in Darwin in March of 1939 and was Australia's first regular field force unit of artillery and infantry. Disbanded in August 1940 its members were dispersed throughout the Australian forces contributing to operations in WWII and later.

From here we go to the AWA (Australian Wireless Association) building which was the tallest in the city for over 20 years until the modern skyscrapers began being constructed. This wonderful art deco building is topped with a working antenna.

Stepping back in history to what is now known as the Commonwealth Banking Corporation's Barrack Street Branch...now a Greek restaurant. The building was the first in Australia to be constructed as a savings bank and it opened on 17th January 1850 as the Headquarters of The Savings Bank of New South Wales which had been founded in 1832. In 1833 the Savings Bank of New South Wales took over the business of Australia's pioneer savings bank, Campbell's Savings Bank which had been established in 1812.

Built with the most luxurious of materials the Barrack Street branch would never be constructed today...we just don't build like this anymore. Moruya granite was used for the Doric ground floor columns, the Ionic and Corinthian columns above are Balmoral granite from Scotland and the Balustrade Capping and Base are of St Anne marble from the Pyrenees. This building has one of the finest exterior examples of the revival style of Victorian architecture in the city.

Next stop is the Grace Hotel housed in a former Grace Brothers Department store that was built in the commercial Gothic style of the 1920's. Strikingly similar to the wonderful Chicago Tribune Building (1922-25) the decorative corner tower here at the hotel rises to some 213ft above street level. This building actually opened at completely the wrong time, on July 3rd 1930.

Construction was based on the fact that the opening of the harbour bridge and the completion of the railway would make York Street the main retail thoroughfare. However, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 meant that by 1933 the building had become a mortgage liability. By 1936 the building was under the control of a Management Trust and even by the end of 1939 only 6 floors were tenanted.

Between 1942 and 1945 the building served as the American Military HQ in Sydney and General Douglas MacArthur had his HQ in the air-conditioned basement.

Continuing with the art deco theme we head to see the spectacularly overdone pseudo Gothic art deco lobby of the State Theatre before moving on to the Art House Hotel a popularised fusion building.

From Tony's apartment we head off in the car to see the old Mark foy's store exterior and on for Broadway to see the original Grace Brothers store. Our next stop is Tony's alma mater the University of Sydney before a drive through Newtown (shabby chic and so university.

Back via Glebe Point Road we are to dine at Wok Station by Nitan (one of Sydney's most famous and successful young Thai chefs) in Pyrmont. I have never tasted Thai food like it. It was exceptional with flavours that brought your taste buds to life and salmon that melted in your mouth.

Nitan was a lovely man and typically Thai in his hospitality he would not hear of us either ordering or paying for the meal.

Driving back across the harbour bridge with Tony the diamond was lit tonight and I realised yet again that I have had another diamond day in Sydney.