Saturday 17th February 2007. Sydney, New South Wales.

This morning breakfast will be at Orson & Blake. This concept store is a temple of high design; a Sydney version of Heal's. As I enter I realise that this is a store staffed by beautiful people, for beautiful people, selling furniture and accessories for beautiful homes. My first impression is one of the arrogance of the beautiful...how wrong could I be. This is the friendliest cafe I have found with some of the best food in the city...and the furniture ain't bad either!

My destination today is the Brett Whiteley Studio in Surry Hills. Brett Whiteley was one of the greatest Australian artists of the twentieth century. An intense and prolific practitioner who ranged across an impressive spectrum of media. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, sculptor and wordsmith; but he ultimately flourished best as a painter.

The Brett Whiteley studio was his last home and studio from 1985-1992. The current exhibition 9 Shades of Whiteley is a mini-retrospective tracing the artist's life and career from his earliest work in 1955 with Self Portrait at Sixteen to just a few months before his death with Port Douglas, Far North Queensland (1992).

The exhibition includes 9 phases of his art: Early Works, Abstraction, Bathroom Series, Christie and London Zoo Series, Lavender Bay, Portraits, Birds, Landscapes and Late Works. It is an astonishing body of work displaying all the dexterity, imagination and ambition of a prodigious talent.

This is a master work in how to run a museum. The gallery is a living space used this Saturday, as every Saturday, for a very popular life drawing class. How inspirational it must be to be taught surrounded by such great art works. The space is also utilised for other arts such as poetry readings.

I am hugely indebted to Ashley from the Public Programmes section of the Art Gallery of New South Wales who not only welcomed me and made me feel very comfortable but who also answered my many and varied questions and gave me a real insight into the man and his talent.

A huge range of educational material can be found at www.brettwhiteley.org

Apart from attending evening drawing classes and sketch clubs Whiteley was largely self taught. In Italy he developed a particular interest in late Byzantine and early Renaissance artists and in London his artistic mentor was Francis Bacon, so it will not be surprising that many of his works explicitly explore sensuality.

His works that cover the spectrum of moods saw him obsessed with early ideas of schizophrenia where he followed the work of the British psychiatrist R. D. Laing who famously created self-induced states of madness to enable himself to analyse certain disjunctive aspects of the human condition.

Like many artists, Whiteley saw sexuality and sensuality everywhere; these concepts being the ultimate human driving force. He would get charged and high on this information and saw himself as a telegram boy translating the message.

The Bathroom Series on display here provides one such record of sensual behaviours.

The purchase by the Tate of Untitled red painting (1960) established his international reputation very early in his career.

My favourites though were The balcony 2, (1975) with its deeply insightful interpretation of the multi-faceted Sydney Harbour and Self portrait after three bottles of wine (1977) which is a great study of human behaviour.

This gallery is a true artistic treasure, not just in Sydney but both nationally and internationally!!

I head off to complete the afternoon tea trio. The Queen Victoria Building is a must see in Sydney but too many people just pass through without exploring the full building. Yes, from ground level you get an idea of this gem, but you must explore and see the stunning stained glass, the art works and even a model of the 19 year old Queen Victoria in her coronation robes from June 28th 1838.

Imported by the British East India Company, the first samples of Britain's national drink reached England between 1652 and 1654. By the middle of the 18th century tea had replaced ale as the national drink in England.

Prior to the 17th century there had been two main meals in England: breakfast and dinner. It was Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford who was the first to invite her friends to join her for an additional afternoon meal of bread and butter sandwiches, small cakes and tea.

Later made popular by Queen Victoria, afternoon tea developed into an indulgent cuisine of waver-thin crust-less sandwiches typically of cucumber, smoked salmon and chedder cheese; fancy cakes and regional savouries and pastries such as Welsh rarebit (best in the world is found at Fortnum and Masons in London), Scottish scones (today the epitimey of afternoon tea and my granny made the very best; although Granny Murray's are also exceptional) and English crumpets.

Two distinct forms of tea services evolved: low and high tea. Low tea is enjoyed in the low or early part of the afternoon and was served in aristocratic homes featuring gourmet titbits with an emphasis on presentation and conversation.

The working class were actually the originators of high tea. Not having the means of two main meals each day they combined afternoon tea with the evening meal serving meats, breads and cakes with hot tea at the end of the day. If you are lucky enough to get to Scotland you will find the most wonderful High Tea still being served in traditional hotels!

Sadly, afternoon tea here was a disappointment. The room was interesting but the service was poor and the tea only adequate. The Intercontinental wins hands down as the best place to have afternoon tea in Sydney.

Something that does annoy me about Australia is this desire to always up the price. If its not because its a public holiday, its because its the weekend that they automatically add 10% to the bill...a real con I think!!

Anyway, I have loved my travels in Australia and I intend tonight to celebrate with a very elegant meal to toast the success that has been Building Blocks, Australia!

My dinner venue is Mohr & Mohr in Surry Hills a very elegant European menu is served up here by resident chef Hans Mohr. One thing I have noticed here in Australia is that Chefs' have a sort of demi-God status.

The night however does not go totally to plan. Firstly I get myself locked in the loo for over an hour. I simply closed the lock and the handle came off in my hand. Despite my appeals for help I was trapped until an Irish man came along...talk about surreal?

Then to top it all off I got locked out of my room (no jokes Wayne!!) and so I had to borrow a ladder and climb up to the second floor window. Lucky this was such a shabby hotel and the windows didn't fit properly...Ah well time for bed.