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Sydney Revisited26 Nov 2006
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Lunch at Palm beach
Its the summer bay surf club!
Im in Home & Away
| Our flight from Ballina, just outside Byran Bay was uneventful and got us back into Sydney by early morning. Carol is a huge Home and Away fan so we hired a car to drive up to Palm beach where the epic soap is flimed. The girls enjoyed themselves taking pictures on the beach while I squirmed at being associated with such behaviour! We left the beach and drove down the coast to Bondi where we got a hotel room on the main strip which became our base for two nights. On day one we took advantage of the cloudy weather to walk from Coogee to Bondi and on day two spent the day lounging on the beach. It was great fun but we really felt that in order to enjoy the night life you needed to be in your early twenties...how sad are we! From Bondi we made our way back to Ilde and Marks for Carols last couple of days in Sydney. We did the usual touristy things like go to the opera house, have lunch in Darling Harbour and caught a ferry from Circular Quay to Manly Beach. Unfortunately Manly was a little windy so we couldn't do any sunbathing. After a really delicious going away meal with Carol on Thursday night, we got up and Carol began the unpleasantness that is packing. We were sorry to say goodbye to her, the time really flew. The four weeks were quite busy and we saw a lot but we were all wrecked by the end of it. Just the two of us again, we spent the following days doing some last minute touristy stuff and hanging out with Ilde. A highlight was the aquarium on Darling Harbour, it was so impressive. The shark pool was fantastic, they were so graceful. Linda was very excited to finally see the elusive Platypus, not seeing one in the wild was a great disappointment of her trip up to this point. On Sunday we caught a train and bus up to the Blue Mountains for a little romantic treat before we leave Australia. We stayed in a lovely B&B in Leura called Broomlea House. It was so quaint with chocolates everywhere, log fires burning (which was quite nice as it was only about 10 degrees and raining) and situated within walking distance of the village. On our first evening we went for a lovely meal in a restaurant in town, The Post Office, really nice. The next day we got up early, had our lovely breakfast before going for a couple of hours walk around the mountains. We started at the Three Sisters before climbing the steps to the valley floor and walking along the base of the cliff. It was a great day, the weather had cleared up so we had sunshine and nice views. That evening we returned to Sydney with sore legs from the climbing. That evening Ilde cooked us up a favourite of ours from her many dishes, chili meat balls! Other than that we spent the last number of days meeting with people. An old friend of Lindas Mum lives in Sydney so we met her in Paddington markets on Saturday. It was lovely to meet her and spent some time looking around the stalls. That evening we had a great night meeting up with Clare and Steve who we met in Brazil about five months ago. We chatted for hours over a pizza before retiring to a nearby bar to do some beer tasting. It was a great night and fantastic to meet up with the guys again. We shared a lot of travelling stories as we had been to so many of the same places. On our last day we met up with Clare and Steve again for drinks by the opera house. We were sad to say good bye to them but no doubt we'll hook up again in Ireland in the future. On the last night in Sydney we went out for dinner with Ilde and Mark. We had a lovely meal in Balmain before returning to the house to begin packing. There were a few tears when the guys left for work and goodbyes were said. The two of them were the perfect hosts and really made our stay in Sydney so special. Thanks again Ilde and Mark, we look forward to returning the favour (minus the magnificent meals as that we just cannot equal) in Ireland in the near future. At six o'clock this evening we board our flight to Bangkok and complete the first big leg back closer to Dublin. Although we have nine weeks of travel ahead of us we can't help feeling the end is looming large. Really looking forward to Asia and more challenging travel but we are already planning return trips to Australia. |
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