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| Myself, our friend Joyanne (right) and her coworker Jen at Dragonboating |
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We have officially been in Australia for over a month now, and MY OH MY the time has flown by! Between visits to the Sydney Fish Market, seeing a Games Exhibit at the Powerhouse Museum, coastal walks joining breath-taking beaches (including the World-Famous Bondi beach), Pyrmont community festivals and even Dragonboat Racing, we've managed to settle in quite well in our new city. But don't worry; we've barely scratched the surface on new and exciting things to discover in Sydney, let alone the rest of Australia (and no, we still haven't seen a Kangaroo yet!)
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| Being ever-so handy and building our desks for the office! |
Rob has been vastly enjoying his work here at the Deloitte offices and is enjoying getting a handle on a new business environment and new team members. For those of you who know Rob, he thrives in situations where he gets the chance to prove himself, so he's happy as a clam! I'm really getting into the groove of working from home now that we've set up our home office (Rob and I had an.... invigorating time building desks - especially Rob's model, which has a drawer system that almost got the best of us)
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| Trying to be up-and-away at 5:30am without coffee.... that's tough! |
But that's just our regular day-to-day and I'm sure it's not nearly as interesting as the sightseeing we've been up to, so I'll focus on that stuff instead! Earlier in the month we signed up for a guided tour of the Sydney fish market, the world's third largest fish market! We were up at the crack of dawn to get to the fish market in time to see the tail-end of the fish auction. These guys are up early and operate until mid afternoon. These are long days of hard work and it's staggering to think about the huge number of fish and seafood that goes through the market every single day.
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| The Fish Market floor (from the internet) filled with crates of fish |
Our tour guide, Alex, was absolutely fantastic and both extremely knowledgeable and entertaining. We weren't allowed to take photos on the market floor (so I got a couple from the internet), but we were certainly taken through and shown a wide variety of fish and facts about aquaculture, the Australian market industry, handling and food safety standard, logistics, and tips on the best types of fish for value. The Sydney Fish Market was established in 1945 by the state government and
was privatized in 1994. Here you can find up to one hundred sustainable seafood species traded every day and
approximately 500 species traded annually. This number raises every year as fisherman become more diverse in what they bring in. Alex explained that even though Australians typically live so close to a treasure trove of delicious fish, they have historically (and ironically) had a very narrow taste in the types of fish species they'll eat. This has started to change as sustainable fishing (and the threat of over-fishing of 'staple' species) has popularized a wider variety of fish in resturants, markets, and dining room dinner tables. The economics behind the industry is really interesting; chefs find quality fish of species that aren't very popular, by it at a very low price (because they're not popular, not because they're poor quality) and are able to sell it for a huge profit. As these fish become more popular with the public, prices for these species go up, and new "cheap" species are discovered. Alex mentioned that in the past 5 years he's been working at the SFM, he's seen an insane amount of growth in the number of species and at least once a week he'll see something there he's never seen before. They begin setting up for each auction at 3p.m. the day before. At 2:30
a.m. a quality assurance team comes in and checks the temperatures of
the fish, grade the quality, and insure that safety regulations are being met. At 4:30 a.m. the
floor is open to buyers (or 'pickers') to go down and see what they want to buy. All
crates are stacked by type of fish and provider. At 5:30 a.m. the
auction starts and runs until everything is sold, usually around 8:30 – 9
a.m. When the auction is finished, everything is cleaned up and it
starts all over again.
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| Left: A tank of live Crabs for sale. Right: One of the workers at the SFM cleaning and filleting fish |
Not only is there a lot of diversity, but there's a lot of volume! Because of this, the SFM introduced a computerised Dutch auction in October 1989,
dramatically evolving the way fish was to be sold. Modelled on the
‘reverse’ auction system, which has been used for over 130 years to sell
tulips in Amsterdam, SFM’s auctioneers set the price approximately $3
higher than the assumed market price. "Pickers" sit in bleacher-like seats with computerized consoles in front of 3 large Clocks that show this market price. The clock then winds down at a
rate of $1 per revolution and the price drops until a buyer stops the
clock by pressing a button in their console. The successful buyer then selects a number
of crates from the ‘lot’. In February 2004, state-of-the-art digital
video projectors were installed to enhance the auction clocks. These
large screens face toward around 150 to 200 pickers each day.
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| (image from the internet) Screens for the auction clocks. |
Through this reverse auction system, SFM can now offer buyers the
fastest and most efficient method of trading seafood, while ensuring the best possible price in open competition. Approximately
1,000 crates or 20,000 kg of seafood are sold every hour during SFM
auctions. That’s an average of 2,700 crates, or 50 tonnes of fresh
seafood, traded every day.
While I like eating fish, I'm not super familiar with cleaning and cooking fresh fish. Alex showed us some fish that are great value and easy to cook. Something else really cool about the market is that it has a cooking school where people can go to learn from celebrity and well-known chefs about how to prepare and cook seafood. This initiative is to help in the process of diversifying the Australian public in the seafood consumption. It's definitely something I'd like to try out! We found out that the Moreton Bay Bug is a much cheaper and tastier substitution for Lobster, Leatherjacket fish are pretty much the easiest fish to prepare, and salmon is incredibly expensive in comparison! We also saw (to name just a few) squid, octopus, wolf fish, the very popular sea bream, and of course, giant mud crabs. I even got to hold one!We bought 2 dozen oysters to take home and made some cocktail sauce to go with them (because apparently Australia doesn't have our Cocktail sauce... it's this mayonnaise-based stuff that didn't look appetizing). The oysters were fantastic; but I haven't built up the nerve to try buying and cooking a whole fish yet. It's on the list of things to do!
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| Moreton Bay Bug |
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| Alex showing me how to properly hold a Mud Crab without losing a finger |
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| I did it! All my digits are still intact! Those puppies are heavy, though! This one is a male, which you can tell by the pattern on the crabs carapace. Males have a triangle, and females have a more rounded shape. |
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| So many delicious oysters! |
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| Fishing boats in Wattle Bay, just outside the fish market. |
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| While it looks pretty, the smell in the Harbour is definitely that of a fish market! |
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We also took the time to head out to the Sydney eastern coast to do a walk from Coogee to Bondi Beach.
This is the most famous, most walked track in Sydney, no question, and for good reason! Sure, it’s easy to get to, and
passes between two of Australia’s best-known beaches, Bondi and Bronte.
But it’s the sunny, coastal views that bring walkers by the busload! There are few things more satisfying
than watching the South Pacific Ocean roll and crash against the line
of coves and beaches extending south from Bondi to La Perouse on to the
entrance to Botany Bay. There are many incredible vantage points and
photo opps along the way. There are so many extremely fit people in Sydney, and you can definitely enjoy some time of people watching as you walk along the paved path between the beaches. We had a beautiful day to do that walk, as well! When we arrived a Bondi, we walked along the busy main stripe and found a delicious German pub and had yummy burgers and a great flight of beer that warmed our tummies after all our hard work walking along the coast! A great end to a lovely day trip.
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| Rob rebelling against the sign. GASP! |
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| A cemetery with a view |
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| A great panorama Rob took; I highly suggest a full view of this one! The small view size doesn't do it justice. |
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| Enjoying the beautiful blue South Pacific! |
