Sydney paper plane game
See the opera house that looks like a boat full of sails.
Pick a height before the harbour. Get past the cockatoo, then the lyrebird.
Around the harbour
Aboriginal people lived around the harbour for many thousands of years before 26 January 1788, when a British fleet of 11 ships landed convicts and marines at Sydney Cove. The convict settlement grew into Australia's oldest city, spread around the arms of a vast natural harbour.
“I'd count the ferries criss-crossing the harbour.”
The landmarkThe sails on the harbour
Danish architect Jørn Utzon won the design contest in 1957 with shell-like roofs. He left Australia in 1966, before the building was finished, and it opened in 1973. Its roofs wear more than a million white and cream tiles, and in 2007 it became a World Heritage Site.
Neighbourhoods
Greater Sydney is home to about 5.6 million people, more than any other city in Australia. The Rocks, beside the harbour in the city centre, is the oldest part of Sydney. In the early 1970s there were plans to clear the area for high-rise towers, but residents and building workers saved it with a "green ban", a refusal to work on the site. Paddington is known for its rows of Victorian terrace houses with iron lace balconies. Bondi Beach, about 7 km east of the city centre, is the best-known of Sydney's ocean beaches.
The harbour
Sydney Harbour, also called Port Jackson, is a river valley that the sea flooded at the end of the last Ice Age. It is about 19 km long, and its winding shores add up to about 317 km. The Harbour Bridge opened on 19 March 1932. The top of its arch is 134 metres above the water, and since 1998 people have been able to climb to the top on guided walks.
The skyline
The tallest building in the city is Crown Sydney, a 271-metre hotel and apartment tower at Barangaroo that opened in December 2020. With its spire, Sydney Tower is taller still, at 309 metres.
When to see it
Watch the harbour at sunset from Mrs Macquarie's Chair, a bench cut into the sandstone by convicts in 1810. It looks across the water to the Opera House and the bridge. On New Year's Eve, fireworks light up the bridge at 9 pm and again at midnight. From late May into June, the Vivid Sydney festival, held since 2009, lights up the Opera House sails at night.
Who keeps the wish in Sydney.
An Elite wakes first; the Boss guards the wish itself. Hit their weak points for a BONK!, land the last blow for a KO!, and each one grins and takes a bow.
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The Elite
The Cockatoo
Lord of the park · Keeper of Sydney's streets
Sydney's sulphur-crested cockatoos taught each other to flip open the lids of wheelie bins. Scientists followed the trick as it spread from suburb to suburb, from 3 suburbs in 2018 to 44 by the end of 2019, and found each neighbourhood's birds had their own way of doing it.
The cockatoo raises its yellow crest and looks the plane up and down. The cockatoo screeches, shakes out its feathers and stays put. The cockatoo folds its crest, bows and flies off to the nearest bin.
“I'd leave the bin lid open for it.”
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The Boss
The Lyrebird
The great mimic · Keeper of the forest's songs
The superb lyrebird can copy almost any sound it hears: other birds, camera shutters, even chainsaws. It lives in the forests around Sydney, and its lyre-shaped tail has been on Australia's ten-cent coin since 1966.
The lyrebird fans its silver tail and starts copying the plane's hum. The lyrebird skips a note, then sings on. The lyrebird folds its tail, bows and goes quiet.
“I'd ask it to sing my plane back to me.”
Sydney cleared. The sails were really made of tiles.
- The cockatoo bowed like it owned the place. It probably does.
- The lyrebird sang my own plane back to me. I didn't know it sounded like that.
The plane reaches Sydney from Tokyo. Clear it and the map opens the way to San Francisco. Its own plane look is Jacaranda Blossom, a trail look.