No visit to Sydney is complete without a trip to the historic Rocks district on the harbour foreshore. And no visit to the Rocks would be complete without this self-guided audio walk. The Rocks is the enclave where European Sydney had its beginnings. Here the first convicts were ordered to build their huts and here they worked the sandstone that made Australia's first buildings. This self-guided walk will take you to the places they lived and tell you their stories. You'll even see where the marks of their chisels are still visible. Steven Lewis's light-hearted but informative commentary has kept this guide in the Amazon travel Top 10. You'll hear tales of kidnappings, murders, foul deeds and the vision that saved The Rocks from government bulldozers. The guide makes for good company as you take a hour-long stroll through the history of this young city and of Australia itself. You'll hear about the lives of the convicts, many of whom had never so much as seen the ocean before they became some of the world's best travelled people. The transportees emerged from the fetid cargo holds of their tiny sailing ships to a land already peopled by spear-carrying aborigines who viewed them with justifiable suspicion. Their settlement shared the harbour foreshore with flightless birds that stood as tall as a man; and animals that hoped rather than ran, carrying their young in pouches. These men and women lived stories we can only imagine through science fiction. The history of these first European settlers, Sydney and Australia is around every cobblestoned corner of the Rocks but the Rocks isn't a museum or a theme park; people live here, work here, and throng to the famous weekend markets. Nowhere in Australia offers such a tangible and unbroken connection between today's Australia and its European beginnings. This guide is your connection to Sydney's colourful and usual past.
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