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Homebush Bay:
Site of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games
Homebush Bay is on the Parramatta River, a nice 50-minute ferryboat ride from Circular Quay. The boat goes under the Harbour Bridge and up the river about eight kilometers, making stops at small neighborhood piers along the way. Long Nose Point, Wolseley Street Wharf, Abbotsford, Cabarita, Kissing Point, the little shoreside neighborhoods go by, rising up the hills above the islands and inlets of the river.
Buses meet the ferryboat at Homebush Bay and take visitors into the Olympic site, a massive city that was still under construction at the time of my visit. I got off the bus at the entrance to the site and climbed Kronos Hill, one of seven man-made promontories that are being constructed around the perimeter of the Olympic site. When seen from the air, the seven hills form the shape of the Southern Cross, the constellation of stars that graces the Australian flag.
Kronos Hill was not the only place to get a good view of the Olympic Site. I walked up the broad Olympic Boulevard to the Novotel Hotel, a 17-story building with an observation deck at the top that commands spectacular views of all of the Olympic venues and the entire city of city in the background. From here I could see the entire length of the Olympic Boulevard, lined with Stadium Australia, the SuperDome, the Aquatic Center, the Baseball Stadium, and the Athletes Village.
The Athletes Village was designed by Greenpeace and is the centerpiece of an extensive environmental plan undertaken by the Sydney Olympic Organizing Committee. The Village, which will house 5,000 athletes from around the world, is entirely solar-powered and will be converted to much-needed housing when the Games are over. Construction of the Olympic site has been wracked with environmental controversy, including a failure to clean up toxic waste and the dumping of sewage into the Parramatta River. Nevertheless, this is the first time that enviromental issues have been addressed during the construction of an Olympic site, and Sydney has done an admirable job of incorporating these concerns into the overall theme of the Games.
My next stop was Stadium Australia, where the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games were held, as well as many of the events. Since my time was limited, I decided that this would be the one place I should take the official tour, the only way to see the inside of the venues while construction was still taking place. It also gave me an opportunity to imagine what this place was going to be like in a few months time, when athletes, visitors, and media from all over the world descend on it for the Olympic Games.
The hour-long tour started by climbing the escalators to the fourth floor, stepping out into the very top of the bleachers, then descending down to the press boxes, the VIP boxes, and ending up in the athletes' locker rooms on the first floor. Our tourguide provided us with an ongoing commentary about the construction of the site, pointing out the platform where the Olympic torch would be placed, and explained to us the "water theme" of the Games, made evident by the undulating "waves" of blue and purple in the seats that fill the stadium.
Next Up: A trip to the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney.
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