Commissioner’s Steps Circular Quay, Sydney, Ghid vizitatori și ce de văzut în apropiere

Commissioner's Steps at Circular Quay West in Sydney sits on the harbour edge beside The Rocks, where contemporary public art and the city's literary history share one stretch of waterfront. Here you can see Lindy Lee's sculpture Secret World of a Starlight Ember and the plaque for poet Dorothea Mackellar, set into the footpath of the Sydney Writers Walk.

The story behind it

The sculpture is by the artist Lindy Lee and is titled Secret World of a Starlight Ember. According to the route creators, it explores our connection to the cosmos. In daylight its surface picks up the life of the quay, including the harbour, passers-by, nearby buildings and the sky. After dark it lights up and shimmers like star dust.

Underfoot, the Sydney Writers Walk was created in 1991, and each of its plaques carries a quotation and a few lines about the writer's life. Dorothea Mackellar was born in 1885 at her family's harbourside home, Dunara, at Point Piper, the only daughter of the physician and politician Sir Charles Mackellar. She wrote the poem "My Country", and its second stanza, about a sunburnt country of sweeping plains, droughts and flooding rains, is known by heart by generations of Australian schoolchildren. She died in 1968, aged 82, and is buried in Waverley Cemetery.

What to look for

• Watch how the sculpture's surface reflects the harbour, the crowds at Circular Quay and the sky, so the piece changes with the weather and the hour.
• Look for the Dorothea Mackellar plaque in the footpath and read the quotation and the short account of her life that it carries.
• Notice the other Writers Walk plaques along the pavement, each with its own quotation and a few lines about the writer.
• Look up from the plaque to the harbour in front of you, the same waterside setting where Mackellar grew up.

Tips for your visit

• Allow 15 to 20 minutes to look at the sculpture, read the plaque and take in the view.
• Come back after dark if you can, because the sculpture is lit at night and looks very different from its daytime, mirror-like self.
• It sits on the public waterfront, so there is nothing to enter, and the ferry wharves of Circular Quay are right beside it.
• The Rocks is next door, so it pairs easily with a longer wander through its lanes and along the harbour.

See it on a quest

Murder Mystery: Death in the Shadows in The Rocks, Sydney takes you on foot through the area around Circular Quay as a murder mystery. The app tells you about each place as you reach it and sets a puzzle in what is in front of you. One ticket covers the whole group.

Street Art of Sydney: Catch an Art Thief suits anyone drawn to the public art here. You walk to each stop on a longer route, hear about it in the app and solve a puzzle on the spot, with no guide or group to join. One ticket covers the whole group.

Ghost Hunt in Sydney is a good fit for a place where an old poet's words still sit in the pavement. You move from stop to stop at your own pace, the app tells you about each place as you arrive, and you solve a puzzle in the surroundings. One ticket covers the whole group.