Sydney in 1985

SYDNEY - 1985

In February 1985, there was an intensive lightning storm in the area supplied by the Tauranga Electric Power Board (TEPB) with whom I was an engineer.

The staff belonging to the Electrical Workers Union were all on strike. Thus it was left to non-union labour to try and restore supply to sections of the TEPB area.

Fortunately, union workers seeing and appreciating the difficulties the local people were under, gradually drifted back to work.

Later that year the Board of the Electric Utility gave the staff who initially assisted with restoring Electric Supply a one off financial bonus. I used mine to visit Sydney as I planned to work overseas.

As it appeared likely that I would not be able to initially set up a darkrom overseas, I needed experience in working with colour slides in foreign locations, so I chose Sydney for a two week trial run. Before this time I had only been to Fiji from New Zealand in 1970, when I took the opportunity to buy a Canon 35mm SLR camera, at a duty free price.

The first photos processed by the local chemist from my new camera were so awful it encouraged me to learn to do my own film processing.

In 2002 I took a few slides to be scanned to a Kodak film processing outlet and made a small website called "The School". In 2005, when I had an established house in Perth, Western Australia, I bought a film scanner and processed some of my colour slide collection. Up to this time I mainly made B&W prints and did my own film processing.

In 2006 I made a web site with the objective of selling photos on line. This was a complete failure, but I did get experience with web design. I am now sourcing this page on Sydney from that site. In the last ten years there has been very large increases in internet speeds, and data storage allowances, enabling larger higher quality images to be produced for the WWW.

1985 was four years before the WWW was invented by Tim Berners-Lee. Thus my source of information on Sydney was primarily from travel books in the local library in Tauranga. These days there is almost an overload of information available on most destinations over the Internet.

From the material that I read it seemed that 'The Rocks' would be the most interesting place to stay. So I resided in the Glenmore Hotel.

The 'Argyl Cut' was within a short walk so I took some photos.

The 'Argyl Cut' is a deep rock cutting through a sandstone ridge to provide access between Millers Point and The Rocks.

It was started about 1843 and the task was given to convicts equipede with only primitive tools. It was finished by the Sydney Municipal council about 1868. They used explosives in the final excavation stage.

Large sandstone blocks taken from the cut were used for buildings such as the hotel named the 'Hero of Waterloo'.

The name Argyle was chosen by Governor Macquarie in honour of his birthplace in Scotland.

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SYDNEY - 1985 In February 1985, there was an intensive lightning storm in the area supplied by the Tauranga Electric Power Board (TEPB) with whom I was an engineer. The staff belonging to the Electrical Workers Union were all on strike. Thus it was left to non-union labour to try and restore supply to sections of the TEPB area. Fortunately, union workers seeing and appreciating the difficulties the local people were under, gradually drifted back to work. Later that year the Board of the Electric Utility gave the staff who initially assisted with restoring Electric Supply a one off financial bonus. I used mine to visit Sydney as I planned to work overseas. As it appeared likely that I would not be able to initially set up a darkrom overseas, I needed experience in working with colour slides in foreign locations, so I chose Sydney for a two week trial run. Before this time I had only been to Fiji from New Zealand in 1970, when I took the opportunity to buy a Canon 35mm SLR camera, at a duty free price. The first photos processed by the local chemist from my new camera were so awful it encouraged me to learn to do my own film processing. In 2002 I took a few slides to be scanned to a Kodak film processing outlet and made a small website called "The School". In 2005, when I had an established house in Perth, Western Australia, I bought a film scanner and processed some of my colour slide collection. Up to this time I mainly made B&W prints and did my own film processing. In 2006 I made a web site with the objective of selling photos on line. This was a complete failure, but I did get experience with web design. I am now sourcing this page on Sydney from that site. In the last ten years there has been very large increases in internet speeds, and data storage allowances, enabling larger higher quality images to be produced for the WWW.	1985 was four years before the WWW was invented by Tim Berners-Lee. Thus my source of information on Sydney was primarily from travel books in the local library in Tauranga. These days there is almost an overload of information available on most destinations over the Internet. From the material that I read it seemed that 'The Rocks' would be the most interesting place to stay. So I resided in the Glenmore Hotel. The 'Argyl Cut' was within a short walk so I took some photos. The 'Argyl Cut' is a deep rock cutting through a sandstone ridge to provide access between Millers Point and The Rocks. It was started about 1843 and the task was given to convicts equipede with only primitive tools. It was finished by the Sydney Municipal council about 1868. They used explosives in the final excavation stage. Large sandstone blocks taken from the cut were used for buildings such as the hotel named the 'Hero of Waterloo'. The name Argyle was chosen by Governor Macquarie in honour of his birthplace in Scotland.












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