Withers Lane connects Crown and Reilly Streets. It has a bit of a dark history. In the times of the Razor Gangs Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh’s gang members trawled this lane. “Big Jim” Devine, Frank “The Little Gunman” Green, Guido Calletti and Phil “The Jew” Jeffs among them.

I love an urban wall in the dark hours, shadow play, contrasting surfaces, and sometime an art surprise. Will Coles in Sydney’s Newtown.

Who knows what evils lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows. This radio show started in 1930, but James Street in Sydney’s Redfern predates the broadcast.

You can run across it, you can drive over it, walk it, take a bus or a train, cycle over it and even climb up it. The steelworks for the Sydney Harbour Bridge began 100 years ago. I still get a thrill anyway I cross it, but I’m no climber😉

If past performance is an indicator for present and future outcomes, I should not be able to see any sky. Thankfully, we finally got some pleasant dawn action above the Duck Pond at Sydney’s Centennial Park

Sydney’s Glebe Public School traces its origins back to 1858, with classes first commencing on November 3 of that year. It was later officially opened in its current building on Derwent Street in 1862. There’s only certain times you should take your camera out, 5am works.

Few know that the University of Technology, Sydney’s Faculty of Engineering and IT is actually a launch site for probes. I’m not sure what this probe will probe, but I won’t be standing at takeoff.

Woolloomooloo has a few possible meanings from the first Australians. I’ve found young black kangaroo; place of plenty; burial ground; and field of blood. More recently it has meant working class area, wharfies, navy, meat pie and community. And a good dawn today.

Eerie dawn light paints the façades of apartment buildings on the western side of Sydney’s Rushcutters Bay.

I’m at the old Sydney Fish Market on a cool clear early morning, enjoying the stars above the ANZAC Bridge.

I’m out early inspecting The Fleet Steps at Mrs Macquarie’s Point. Sydney Harbour laps against a stone wall a metre behind me as fog shrouds the scene. These steps were built in 1908 to welcome Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet on its Sydney leg of a round the world cruise.

Looking south from Farm Cove with Sydney Harbour behind me, expensive low rise Harbourside apartments in the foreground, Harry Seidler’s Horizon in the background, and above hopeful dawn clouds. Word is showers to return.

The heritage listed brickworks chimneys at Sydney Park in Sydney’s St Peters stand still under scudding clouds in the pre dawn quiet of a winter’s day.

I was elated that Sydney seemed to be having a good start. It’s greyed over now and drizzling, but I’m still positively engaged with the prospect of wet laundry hanging around my house.

We were told the the current El Niño would bring a dryer than normal winter, but no one told the weather goods. I don’t mind the rain, but I’m a line dryer, so there’s a backlog. Bourke Lane in Sydney’s Redfern is named after Sir Richard Bourke, Governor of NSW, 1831-38.

On a cold, wet Sydney morning I find myself near my first home in Surry Hills. This old warehouse has been many things in my time in the area, including a book storehouse. This is Bennett Place, named after Samuel Bennett, a typesetter (compositor) who started the Evening News in 1867.

I went for a walk along the creek below Sydney’s Northbridge, it was amazing to be in the bush this close to the city.

I’m standing on the Sydney Harbour Bridge looking into empty rooms in the famous brutalist apartment building, the Sirius. Built as social housing, those people booted out and now between $1.6 and $35m per apartment. The ghosts of the dispossessed will haunt those rich bastards.

Join me, Tim Ritchie, for 2 hours of new and re-newed music on When The Levee Breaks, Saturday 6-8pm on the mighty 2SER. There's even a nod to the first dance show on Australian radio, the 12" Singles Show. Click the link for the track list. wp.2ser.com/episodes/whe...

I tend to take pics of the city empty of people, but on a crisp clear winter’s morning, where White Bay meets Johnstons Bay on Sydney Harbour, a boatie made an entry.

First light pushes through dawn clouds on the horizon as the stars still flicker above and the sea bubbles around Sydney’s Bronte Beach Ocean Pool.

Originally named Glebe Island Bridge, the ANZAC Bridge was renamed on Remembrance Day in 1998 to honour the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Another delightful winter’s dawn in Sydney, maybe a shower or two, and warmer than it should be.

Commenced in the 1890s, and named after a princess of course, Sydney’s Alexandra Canal was to give us the “Birmingham of Australia”. Silting issues, shallow draft and a depression meant it was largely abandoned. Dumping of chemicals, blood and offal resulting in the nickname, the stinky canal.

This Moreton Bay Fig and I have some history. While at Uni, I lived in Sydney’s Kirribilli, and visited this Harbourside tree often, and many decades later, I still visit it regularly. Before dawn, it is very quiet and calm at this spot, but the city will wake soon.

Sun shower, rainbow, Moore Park. A Sydney winter.

A still pond at Sydney’s Centennial Park while dawn clouds scud across the sky.

I’m peering into a pedestrian railway underpass tunnel in what was called Macdonaldtown. There’s not enough space here to explain the grim tale behind this Sydney story, search it out if stories of death and crime are your thing.

A grey and wet early start to a Friday at the boat shed, Double Bay, Sydney’s. A longish exposure has flattened the rain and blurred the swaying yachts.

Replacing a wooden manually operated swing bridge, the world’s oldest electronically operated swing bridge opened in 1902. The Pyrmont Bridge connects the western side of Sydney City to Pyrmont. On a rainy early morning, I check out the details of the balustrade.

Distillery Drive in Sydney’s Pyrmont gets its name from a large-scale industrial ethanol distillery. It was originally built to process molasses—a by-product of CSR's sugar refining business. The entire slope down to the water was historically known as Distillery Hill. Now housing for the wealthy.