Sydney expedition... success and failure.

So, 6am this morning I jump on a train. 9am I jump off at Town Hall and within minutes I am in possession of my Apollo bar. Mission 1 accomplished.

Then I headed off for The Rocks to see if this Sydney Glyph Theory would pan out. Wandered aimlessly for a while refamiliarising myself with the place. Then walked up Argyle St to the Lord Nelson. No sign of a glyph. Walk back down Argyle and am temporarily distracted by an art supply store. Managed to walk out without opening the wallet. Investigated side streets a bit. Located the Lowenbrau, still no sign of glyphage. Walked passed there and found myself in a familiar place. Ah, memories... The Rocks Square. Scene of booty shaking in bygone days.


Wander down to the water. Hmmm... is it just me or when I see sphinxes I think of Egypt, not Asia?

Wandered around futher and got long distance shots of previous glyph sites - Kirribilli and Lavender Bay:


Wandering back I decided to check other wharf type places... and the Svanen in particular caught my attention... a swan!

Wandered back towards the shops, spotted doorways with "8" and "4" on them... "4" having a sign advertising The Bead Bar, and I just had to go in. I was thinking my glyph hunting was completely fruitless until I spotted this...Was this a glyph in minature? Didn't have the distinctive border, absence of code (though that doesn't really mean anything these days)... nope, I think my wishful thinking is playing tricks on me!

While inside the bead shop I got a text from annahitch, who posts on Ninja's blog. She was heading into the city, so I left The Rocks and the glyph hunting, meet up with Anna and we got her Apollo-ised.
Apollo Down Under!

Anna and I hung out for a while before I had to catch my train home. 2 hours into the trip I got a text from a friend who was checking Ninja's blog for me. He had updated and the glyph was at The Rocks! We were right! But could I get to it? Nooooooooooooooooo. Mission 2: failed. As I type Timmy C is on the case again, hopefully all our detective work will make his job easier.

If it's not an arrow, what is it?

We had quite the brainstorming session in YIM chat last night about the Sydney Glyph Theory. Of course, they left it till late, so my recollection of it is unlikely to be stellar, but here goes...

Though there were a few who liked the arrow, a few said they felt it was something else. Which I have always thought possible, it was just a question of coming up with something that was as good as the arrow idea. After we spent some time looking at the map of the locations joined in order of their appearance, I decided to create a map that joined all locations to each other:

At about the same time Main commented that one theory he had was the locations were ones that had been mentioned in "Bad Twin". Ninja commented how all the glyphs had been looking inwards, so we started looking at what was in the middle. And as is framed in the middle of the above map, The Rocks was suggested as the next glyph location. For those that have read "Bad Twin", you may recall a scene taking place as Paul Artisan walks down Argyle St in The Rocks.

At the time, Artisan is staying in a hotel/brewery in The Rocks area, and the only one I could find listed is The Lord Nelson which is the corner of Argyle and Kent Sts (top left corner of the above map). This is outside the area that is framed by connecting all the glyph locations however. Another pub in The Rocks area is the Lowenbrau Keller, which is located at the corners of Argyle and Playfair (centre and far right of above map). In the book Pru describes a hotel/brewery as "how Australian is that?", so I don't think this is a reference to Lowenbrau, but it is very possible that the location of the next Sydney glyph is in the general vicinity.

EDIT: I left off without adding links.

The Rocks.com - great site for looking at the businesses that opperate at The Rocks. A bunch more hotels listed here than we found last night.
The Rocks on wiki - history and pictures
The Rocks markets - I like their map because it helps me place places I have been...
The Rocks Square - memories...
holiday photo - reverse angle on sculpture seen in the background of above photo
aerial shot of The Rocks - I suspect this has been taken from the Harbour Bridge

Being that The Rocks is a high traffic area I doubt the glyph will be posted like the majority of glyphs in Sydney. I suspect a glyph here will be on a shop window like the one at Kings Comics. Of course, there are a bunch of shops in the area... and all I can offer to cull the list is that in "Bad Twin" hotels, resturants, boutiques and they later went in search of jewellery stores. Maybe there are 5 shops that can be crossed off the list? I can't help but feel I have missed something... that there is something that should jump out as significant to me, be it a business name or something else.

The Arrow Theory lives a bit longer...

In YIM chat last night we discussed the pattern of the Sydney glyphs a bit again, and something kryptofascist mentioned made me pursue the arrow idea a bit further. Just because my first arrow didn't pan out, I shouldn't completely ditch the idea, because Illoura Reserve did fall within the pattern of the glyph arrow:

So if this is the pattern we are looking for, Pyrmont Point Park is looking good for this weeks round of Sydney Glyph Thursday.

So, as I do, I googled the site and found these links:
The National Public Toilet Map - anyone who does make the trek in search of a glyph will be pleased to know there are 24 hour public toilet facilities available at the Park.
Pyrmont Point Park - Urban and Civic Design - some information and a few pics of the Park.
Additional facilities - anyone who wants to make a day of their Pyrmont glyph hunt may also delight in the news that there are barbeque facilities available as well.

Sydney glyph theory Mk II

OK, so not Blues Point/McMahons point yesterday. But! It was Thursday, and it was by the water. Yes, I'll cling to anything at this point, LOL. Now, the Sydney glyph map updated with the location of yesterdays glyph:

Way to throw off my nicely symetrical arrow! Now this could still be an arrow... but I've lost faith in that idea. That said... I don't know what to make of this now! I do feel that there is something to be made out of these locations... I'm just not seeing anything I liked as much as the arrow ;-)

With this latest glyph really throwing me, I've gone back to an old idea that maybe there is something to the order of these glyph locations. So, I connected the stars:

About all I get out of this a lopsided inverted star... but I feel I am missing something there. And I am really at a loss as to where next weeks glyph might be, so I doubt I'll be trekking down for it now.

Anyone got any ideas? Anyone?

I have also added this latest glyph to my first post.

The glyphs thicken...

Firstly, two points I forgot to mention in my first post: The glyphs have all appeared on a Thursday, and all but the Kings Comic store one have been near water.

Anyway... after a bit of pondering, I found myself leaning towards playing with the map. Someone from the Yahoo chat (kryptofascist) suggested that the positions of the glyphs could be making an arrow. So I copied the stars from my first map, flipped them, aligned the top one and got this:

Looks like a nicely aligned arrow to me. And given the theory that this phase of things will be over in about two weeks, I'm thinking we will get two, maybe three more glyphs in Sydney tops, I would say the chances are good. This may be reading too much into things, but if the arrow glyph in it's location at Lavender Bay, if it were enlarged and placed over the city (which when you are looking at the image from Ninja's blog and laid it down)... it isn't far off the glyph locations.

So, my proposed locations for future glyphs in Sydney are McMahons Point or neighbouring Blues Point, and Darling Island or Jones Bay at Pyrmont. If my theory pans out, I thought it might be an idea to gather some images to "case the joint" and maybe help us locate the glyph when we get the hint that it is out there. I have also checked every Sydney webcam I could find and none give a good view of these locations.

McMahons Point/Blues Point:
Walk Sydney Streets - North Page 5 - scroll down a little for two images from McMahons
Seidler's buildings - smh.com.au - aerial shot of Blue's Point featuring Blues Point Tower
Sydney webcam - a different photo of Sydney each day - panoramic shot with McMahons Point on the right
Peace Bus at McMahon's Point - LOTS of shots here :)
a swimming pool at McMahon's Point - with Blues Point in the background
something else at McMahon's Point - I think this image would have fit right in on the Dharma Oreintation Test video :-D (from http://www.gallery464.co.nz/Recent%20Work.html)
Sydney Summer Series run route - aerial of Blues Point and McMahons Point

Darling Island (which is no longer an island...)/Jones Bay/Pyrmont:
I think this is a German tourist site - aerial shot of Darling Harbour with Darling Island off from that.
Walk Sydney Streets - East+City page 8 - quite a few shots of Pyrmont
Former Ordanance Stores - note the Channel 7 logo atop a building just behind the warehouse?

Also around the Darling Island/Jones Bay is Star City Casino and the Channel 7 headquarters... Channel 7 of course being the Australian broadcasters of LOST.

If there is a pattern to the location of the glyphs it will explain why none have appeared in other Australian locations. But, I guess in a few hours, if the timing of the glyphs holds true, we will know whether I have been on another wild theory ride or on to something.

Are there patterns in the Sydney glyphs?

In last weeks' post by The Lost Ninja, titled "Scsi comes through in a glyph jam!", he said:

"It's weird, all the random spots these glyphs are appearing in, almost as if there's no pattern..."

So I started thinking about the possible patterns that the Sydney glyphs may make. Following is the basic details of each glyph.

Sydney glyph #1
glyph - arrow with dot at tail end (which is at the top)
code - M6XY398
location - street pole at cnr Walker and Lavender Streets, Lavender Bay
background of photo - Harbourside Indian resturant, Harbour Bridge
date of post - July 27
time of post - 09:42pm
first seen by - Ninja

Sydney glyph #2
glyph - circle with spot in it (small dash?)
code - VOU8VPNPS5X
location - window of Kings Comics, 310 Pitt St, Sydney
background of photo - lots of geek stuff, lots of Disney stuff
date of post - August 03
time of post - 1:22pm
first seen by - scsi_chicken


Sydney glyph #3
glyph - two angular "E"s? Sideways waves or mountains?
code - R3PUX4
location - a post at wharf at Jeffreys St, Kirribilli. Wharf name?
background of photo - Opera House
date of post - August 10th
time of post - 12:48pm
first seen by - ChrisB


Sydney glyph #4
glyph - circle with "Y" attached at top and horizontal line through it
code - 44KU2VKQ
location - "Dual Nature" sculpture near the Andrew (Boy) Charlton pool, The Domain
background of photo - naval ship
date of post - August 17th
time of post - 01:14pm
first seen by - MrX


Sydney glyph #5
glyph - horizontal zigzag with a dot above and below
code - PFKAB5QXK
location - rusty old anchor at Peacock Point/Illoura Reserve, Balmain East
background of photo - photo taken at night but much the same angle as this photo showing the city and Pyrmont.
date of post - August 24th
time of post - 01:57pm
first seen by - ChrisB

Sydney glyph #6
glyph - three curved black shapes arranged in a circle with black and white spots
code - 5xw3o
background of photo - dark pub interior
date of post - August 31st
time of post - 3:43pm
first seen by - MrX



But my main thought on a pattern was with placing the locations of the glyphs on a map (marked by purple stars). I passed this map on to people that were in the Yahoo Instant Messenger chat at the time, but nothing really came of it.

glyph images courtesy of Ninja's blog