Day 86 - Blue Mountains to Sydney

  Sydney, Australia
Tuesday, November 27, 2007

We had a bit of a lie-in today, getting up at about 9am, and looked outside to be greeted by rain and dark clouds.

It had been raining all night, and it didn't look like blowing over, so we knew that there was no point going on one of the walks that we'd planned for today.

So we took our time getting ready, and eventually set off for Sydney about 10am.

We called Eric, a French friend of mine who had kindly offered to host us for a few days, and we made arrangements to meet him at his apartment this evening.

Eric is married to one of my favourite ex-workmates, a fun French girl called Julie (Ju-ju), who I've always found highly entertaining. Sadly Ju-ju is currently in Paris at the moment on holiday, but Eric is still here and working hard, so we'll try not to distract him!

The journey into Sydney was wet and pretty straight-forward, the only even slightly notable event en route was stopping at Maccas to get a coffee + muffin and smoothie + cheesecake (no prizes for guessing who ordered what!), which was a rather off-the-wall breakfast but very tasty nonetheless.

About an hour later we were negotiating the busy roads of central Sydney, and found Eric's apartment by the harbour very easily (thanks mainly to his very clear directions), and continuted heading east to Watson's Bay as we had plenty of time to kill before hooking up with him.

Last time I was in Sydney I took a boat out to the heads at Watson's Bay, which offers spectacular views across the bay towards the central skyline and the harbour bridge.

It's miles way from the main harbour area (where the bridge is), so you can't really see the distinctive sails of the Opera house, but it's still a hell of a sight.

I love cityscapes like the one below, you can just make out the harbour bridge to the far right of shot, and the Sky Tower to the left of the skyscrapers.



In the opposite direction (panning right) you look over the Southern Heads, the rocky headland which so many of the first settlers in Australia saw as their first taste of their new homeland.

If you sailed between the two outcrops below, you'd be heading into Sydney harbour, to the left.

 

Aborigines have been living in this special area for arguably tens of thousands of years before the Brits showed up, and there are some traces of this around the park.

After exhausting every photo opportunity, and cursing my new camera for breaking down in Noosa - forcing me to use a rather crappy substitute camera - we headed south towards Bondi beach.

This is Bondi, with its distinctive crescent shaped beach; shame about the weather though!



There were some glimpses of blue sky, so it wasn't too bad on the beach. We didn't bother paying for parking, so parked-up, strolled down to the beach and got back to the car just as the traffic warden vultures were circling!

This is a shot of Bondi beach from the beach.



From Bondi we headed south again to Coogee, a much nicer area to live than Bondi (which is a bit of a dump), and with a smaller but quieter beach.

This is Coogee beach, which probably looks like Norfolk due to the dark clouds!

 

We followed a recommendation to eat in a juice bar on the main beach road, and it was spot-on.

I had a delicious smoothie with mango, banana, honey, cinammon & ice cream, and Katie went for a mango & pineapple smoothie which was also fab.

We chose "Turkish sandwiches" to go with the drinks, and these were also lush.

This is the main street in Coogee, with juice bar at the front right of shot!



To be honest I think we were both still stuffed after that curry last night, so a sandwich and a juice was plenty.

After lunch we cut through central Sydney, looked at the Aussie Stadium, and the famous SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground), before cutting through Hyde Park and heading towards the water.

On the way back to his we stopped at Harry's Cafe de Wheels, what was once a van selling pies but is now a small shed selling pies! I remembered this place fondly from last time I was in Sydney, top class pies + mash + peas fare.

 

From there we walked around the bay to Lady Maquarie's Seat, which is essentially a bit of rock carved out to form a seat, with a good view of the harbour.



We then walked around the corner to the Botanical Gardens, which were beautiful in the afternoon sun, giving great views over the bay towards the financial centre.

 

The park wasn't bad either...



So imagine the two together... le voila!

 

It was still light, but you could clearly see all of the bats up in the trees, waiting for the sun to go down beyond the horizon, there were hundreds if not thousands of them!

They looked like ripe fruit about to fall down, but I wouldn't advise sinking your teeth into them. Bit chewy.



As we turned the final corner towards the harbour bridge, you had a great view over two of Syndey's most famous sights.



We still had a bit of time to play with, so we parked outside Eric's place and took the train into Kings Cross to catch up on some interneting, before realised that we didn't have anything that we needed (memory cards, maps etc), it was all in the car! Ray...

Becks plays for LA Galaxy against Sydney tonight, the first ever game featuring an Australian "A-league" team to be screened on regular commercial television apparently.

When we got back we hooked up with Eric, who made us feel at home instantly, and gave us the tour of his HUGE apartment overlooking the harbour. It was stunning.

None of us really fancied going far for dinner, so we ended up treating Eric (the very least we could do!) to a meal in a great Italian place near his flat, washed down with a very nice Barossa red ;)



By the way, Sydney beat the Galaxy 5-3, but Becks scored one of his trademark free-kicks, so everyone was happy. Job done, and we look forward to the next few days here in Sydney!


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx