Exhibition Centre

A (very) few minutes down the light rail line from Convention station is its sister Exhibition Centre.  For the last few stops the light rail has been trundling down the side of Darling Harbour waiting patiently for the water to stop so it can take a hard left turn towards the city.  Now finally its succeeded, the rail line does indeed swing left just after Exhibition Centre and plunge into Sydney's tangled road network.  I hopped off just before the turn so I could sample the delights of Exhibition Centre.

There is indeed an Exhibition Centre literally just across the road from the station although you're not seeing it at its best.  The Centre was set up to face onto Darling Harbour which means that when you get off the train you're looking at the rather shabby rear of the building.  Possibly for that reason (but I wouldn't rule out sheer perversity) I got off on the other side where, instead of the rear of the exhibition centre I could enjoy the Ultimo sewage pumping station and the rear of the Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre.  For the record "aquatic centre" is a fancy way of saying "indoor pool".

I wasn't interested in the aquatic centre and the sewage pumping station was locked so I wandered down the street towards the Powerhouse Museum.  I remember going to this museum as a child and being fascinated by the machines and technology housed within (although not so fascinated that I set out to understand any of it).  The museum won't be around for much longer as the government is planning to move the museum to a smaller, less convenient site situated on a flood plain at Parramatta.  Moving things to Parramatta is what our state government does when it would dearly like to destroy them but doesn't want the political backlash.  This will leave a prime chunk of inner city land ripe for property development.

Various members of our cultural community have railed against the shortsightedness and vandalism inherent in this act and they're probably right but it is worth remembering they would say the same thing anytime a cultural institution was moved more than fifteen minutes drive away from where they currently live.

I said a last goodbye to the Powerhouse and turned back towards the light rail tracks having determined to give the actual exhibition centre its day in court.  The exhibition centre was built in the eighties when Australia's bicentenary was looming and there was a desire to cover the older, more shabby looking parts of the city with eye pleasing concrete.  The site fronts on to what was the old goods marshalling yards back when the light rail line was part of a significant freight haulage network.  Having built the exhibition centre and ancillary buildings and ringed the whole thing in flyovers, and expressways the designers had to come up with something to do with the marshalling yard shaped hole in the middle.  Possibly out of desperation they turned it into a public precinct with parks, recreation areas, restaurants and a Chinese Friendship Garden although given the current state of our relations with China its more of a Chinese Frostily Polite Garden.

Protected from the bustle of the city by ribbons of concrete, multirise carparks and large buildings the area is actually reasonably quiet and enjoyable.  When I walked along there was even a scantily clad young lady roller skating which I thought was a stereotype reserved for movies set in Venice Beach, California.  Strolling along I just managed to avoid getting back into Pyrmont and even saw the front of the exhibition centre which is considerably more impressive than the rear.  I've no idea what they exhibit there but I'm going to assume "stuff".

With that done I jumped the tracks for the third time and wandered along the Goods Line.  The Goods Line is another hangover from the days when Darling Harbour was a working port.  It was a rail line leading from the marshalling yards out to Redfern and beyond.  When freight stopped coming over the Darling Harbour docks it was essentially abandoned but now has been converted into was is referred to as a linear park.  A linear park is essentially one that is long and skinny.  The park runs along the back (or possibly front) of Ultimo.  I had a pleasant walk along the park, entered a tunnel and wound up at Central railway station which was a little surprising but convenient as I wanted to go home