Outpost - Street Art

So yesterday I went to Cockatoo Island for the first time, it is the largest Island in Sydney Harbour and is a former imperial prison and shipyard.

Outpost is an exhibition of urban art and Cockatoo Island is transformed by over 150 artists into one of the best art exhibitions you will ever see.  So I had arranged to meet Gemma and Jezza at 11am at Circular Quay to get the ferry out to the Island, then Greig and Jen decided to come along too.  So after missing the 11:10 ferry we had an hour or so to kill, and finally we were on our way. 

When we arrived it was a very strange scene, all around you are these old industrial buildings with the prison sitting at the top of the cliff and then all this art and graffiti all over the place.  It was very weird.

So after spending a few hours wondering around we finally decided that it would be best for all concerned to go sit in the sun and enjoy a beer, which was awesome.  The weird thing being that when we say down on the grass at the bar we soon realised we were surrounded by other scots, it seemed that scottish accents were all over the place.  Obviously, Scots hold urban art in high regard, always knew we had good taste.

 So after an hour of watching greig burn in the sun, we decided it best to move on and see the rest of the exhibition and the island.  So we headed straight for the Banksy exhibit.  It was showing a lot of his old stuff and some new, but was highly interesting none the less.

The rest of the day was finished off climbing to the top of the mountain to see the old prison and enjoying the random art on display.  We then headed home, very satisfied with our day and decided to have a little bbq.

Here are some of the things on show at Outpost:

Melbourne Cup

Every year on the first tuesday of November at 3pm, Australia, basically comes to a stand still.  All because of a horse race. A race that is over in a mere 3 minutes.  Millions of dollars are bet on it and millions probably lost too.  I know I lost a few bucks on it.  It is billed as 'the race that stops a Nation.' and it really does.  With the race being held in Melbourne it is a national Holiday in Victoria and in NSW most offices shut for the afternoon, and in the rest of the country everyone stops working for the race.

This year there was a film out in the weeks building up to the 1st of November, called The Cup.  It detailed the events up to and including one of the Melbourne Cups most famous races in 2002.

So now that all you brits and non-horse racing fans have an idea what it is about.   Here is the story of the day.

Our office basically shut up shop at 11:45am, all in finest of outfits (I even managed to hire a kilt for the day), we jumped in Taxi's and headed down the Sydney Opera House, our venue for the afternoon.  Canapes and drinks were provided for all, a band was playing and we had 3 hours to kill before the race.  When 3pm eventually came around most people were slightly drunk and everyone had had a bit of a dance too.  Everyone had several bets on by the time the race started, but blink and you would miss it.  It is nothing like the grand national it is over very quickly.  However, this years race was incredibly close with literally just a whisker in it.  I won nothing of course.  But several other people in the office did. 

It led to an amazing evening and night enjoyed by everyone, a few of us even ended up back in the office enjoying a few of the free beers in the fridge.  The next day however, wasn't as much fun.