Day 5 Sydney again

Our first nearly normal night – we were each up for an hour or so – but that’s a tremendous improvement! It’s the American Thanksgiving today, so we watched the breakfast news with President Obama pardoning a turkey – and then the semi-finals of a professional surfing competition….not something you’d see on telly in the UK… Today’s main mission was to go to Bondi Beach – never mind that it was windy and raining – just a typical British summer’s day…..  The receptionist at our hotel talked us through the procedure: buy a bus ticket from a City Convenience store, find bus stop E at Circular Quay and get off at the last stop…. In fact it was quite easy – and it was interesting seeing some other areas of Sydney – like the streetside Sky News broadcasting room, complete with reporter awaiting his camera link –  it was very reminiscent of a Reeperbahn window - and a demonstration outside a courthouse against some Sydney lawyers who had apparently committed fraud. (Who would have thought that from a bunch of lawyers?)  We also passed the ANZAC memorial, some very nice and some not so nice shopping and residential areas – the outskirts reminded us more of some neighbourhoods in Miami than those in New York – and I was expecting Bondi Beach to be a bit like Miami Beach as a consequence…. Well, it wasn’t. In fact, Rob said it reminded him of Margate!  It was clearly aimed at backpackers and surfers, though the coastal walk to Coogee was fantastic.  

We watched a few hardy surfers and had a coffee at a café frequented by aging hippies. (We passed on both the Ayervedic massage and the light-up reindeer antlers…) We  walked the coastal path and found the ‘Sculpture Garden’, duly noting the 3 pieces of sculpture.  We never did see any of the Aboriginal carvings that are supposedly along the path, but did see plenty of Australians exercising at the specially-designed stations along the way. The Australians – well the ones we have met so far seem obsessed with exercise – actually it would be fairer to say that they were obsessed with exercising in a way that showed everybody that they were exercising.

We grabbed the bus back into the city and walked around the quay a bit more, looking at the various souvenirs on offer and planning some of our Christmas shopping.   There you are, folks – act surprised!

Rob didn’t want to go to the Royal Botanical Gardens, so we walked all the way around the Opera House and then explored a Woolworth’s supermarket….looking at the seaweed flavoured rice cakes and double coated Tim Tams before settling on some muesli bars and ginger biscuits to take on the plane.

We collected our luggage from the hotel and set off for the airport. Jetstar this time – to Perth.  We are due in around 10pm and our tour of Western Australia begins at 7 tomorrow morning…so I doubt I’ll regale you with tales of Jetstar as there will be many more adventures before tomorrow evening!