It was harder than it should have been to find a bookstore. We found the right mall, but kept walking circles without finding any books. The lady working the information center was helpful once we found her, and she directed us to Dymocks.
Dymocks had just the section we were seeking: Australian Children's Books. There were three full shelves of popular and classic kid's book. We spent at least 40 minutes pouring through books with the simple goal of finding a couple "good ones" to bring home. As we searched, we defined "good ones" as books that felt Australian and had a well-written plot.
After much deliberation, we settled on three:
Satisfied with our purchase, we headed back to The Rocks with high hopes the art we liked hadn't been sold. Fortunately, it was buried right where we left it!
As previously decided, we chose a traditional Aboriginal dot painting. It has vibrant colored dots of red, orange and white, along with black symbols that look like arrows pointed at a black circle.
The map actually shows a watering hole with emu tracks leading to it. As the story goes, the members of the tribe would lure the emus to the watering hole using an Emu Caller. (It looks similar to a mini didgeridoo, but is played differently.) Then, while the emus were distracted and drinking water, others would steal the emu eggs from the nest. These eggs were an essential food source for the tribe.
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Our last stop was the Pylon Tower; it's a lookout point attached to the Harbor Bridge. We expected a pretty simple climb: a tower with a bunch of stairs and a look out on the top. It turned out to be pleasantly informative! Many of the tidbits our climb guide shared were explained in the Tower. There was a complete history displayed along with general facts about the bridge.
And, I was excited to find the name of Vincent Kelly - I remembered the story, but forgot the name.
A bloke called Kelly fell 150 feet (nearly 50 meteres) off the deck of the bridge into the water and survived with two broken ribs. When they got him out his boots were split right open and were up around his thighs. They gave him a gold watch.
According to our guide's further detail on the event - Vincent was a decent diver. The day he fell it was because tripped over his toolbox. The toolbox hit the water first, breaking the surface tension. And, Kelly followed it down, falling into the water straight as a pencil due to his diving experience.
Not only was he given a gold watch, he was also granted 11 days off work to recover. Then, it was right back to continue construction!
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