Being Saturday, Rosie and The Operator decided to beat the tourist crush and head out bright and early. It was another blue sky picture perfect autumnal day. Rosie plans the day and The Operator checks the maps and tram timetables and gets us there. It normally works out well, today it was perfect! The Operator navigated with confidence and ease, at every tram or bus stop the bus was just coming down the road….it was miraculous…..if were in the Amazing Race we would have aced that Pit Stop! A tram, a bus and a short walk later we entered The Mission district….famous for, its Mission.
This Spanish mission was established in 1776 and is made from adobe mud brick, the walls are 4 foot thick and 36,ooo bricks were made to construct the building mainly by ‘conscripted local Indian labour in exchange for a meal a day…..’ don’t you think that statement is rather contradictory…..? We were on the door step for 9.00am sharp and Mass was being said in English in the Mission itself….we went along too, was a lovely service in an intimate, old, wood beamed and whitewashed wall surrounding.
A wall surrounds the Mission and was built to keep out the natives back in the day, inside the wall is the quaintest, most beautiful tranquil cemetery I have ever been in.
In amongst the palm trees, flowering plants and spiky aloe vera bushes were the faded gravestones of the early settlers to the mission. They were from the 1820s through to the 1860s, all were from Ireland and came over with the dream of striking it rich in the goldfields, all seemed to die no later than their mid 30s….must have been a hard life.
We left the oasis of the actual Mission and cruised into the Mission district town centre a couple of blocks down the road…..we were headed here for the political street art murals that lined the alleys of the suburb.
Rosie walked 200 metres into the town and said to the Operator, lets get the hell out of here! Everywhere around us was litter, homeless people, beggars, twitching junkies and comatose people. Rosie couldn’t breathe, needed to get out of there quick smart!
This guy had a memorial lampost in the middle of the street with candles burning at the foot of it, you can’t tell me was hit by a car…..
We went to wait for the bus to high tail it out of there, as we were approaching the stop I wandered off from The Operator to take a picture of the sign below….a man came up to me said I looked pretty and asked if he could take me to photograph the murals…..creepy!
Whats even more creepy is buying Whooping Cough vaccinations….at the supermarket!
