Easter housekeeping

Poirot Egg says a belated Happy Easter. He has three eyes because when he solves a crime he turns to the perpetrator and says "trois yeux!!" ......twas you.....with French accent.......hm?....

Good Friday was spent trying to buy a bottle of wine, with no success. So we resorted to spending way too much on cocktails in Glebe before Raami's birthday party. Saturday was food shopping (the only opportunity to shop in the whole 4 days!) then watching Elegy at the cinema.
On Sunday, we took the train to Bondi and found an amazing fish and chip shop (Fishmongers) where we podged up, before walking around the cliff path to Tamarama and then Bronte beaches. I love Bronte. I think I could literally be happy forever if I could get a nice spacious apartment in Bronte, with Mark and a lovely puggy and I would walk along the sea and swim in the little open air pool and never leave ever. Unfortunately we are priced out of the area for the foreseeable, but who knows for the future...
We sat on the beach for a while then wandered back as it got dark. Walking back from Bronte to Bondi is how I imagine walking back from the French Riviera into Blackpool Pleasure Beach to be. Not that you could really walk from one to the other, and not that I have actually visited either, but UH Bondi is so tacky.

On Monday we took the train to the Blue Mountains, getting off at Katoomba to walk the Giant's Steps. The weather was rather different from last time we were there!



Echo Point, the viewing platform for the three sisters, where we ended our first mountains walk in February. Not much viewing to be done this time!



A bit like Narnia!



It did make for some quite dramatic views though.

After making our way to the bottom of Giant's Steps (believe me, it was HARD even going down, they are practically vertical!), we pootled along the path at the bottom, then back up Furber steps at the other end to the Scenic World centre. Unfortunately it started to pour with rain about half way up Furber steps, leaving us ABSOLUTELY soaked and having to navigate a path that had become more of a swamp. It was quite invigorating all the same, and fortunately we both had a spare dry t-shirt, but the train ride home was not what i would call comfortable!

It was then back to work for a short week. Last weekend, we took a trip to Parramatta so Mark could investigate the bike he is getting from Parramatta Bike Barn. Parramatta is actually ok. It is Sydney's biggest suburb with a big shopping and business centre in it, but it also has some nice old buildings and a pleasant square (which was hosting 'Parramatta Chess Festival', much to Mark's excitement!), setting it apart from most of the West which is just bland. It has a bit of history as a town in its own right, so it's worth passing through for an hour or so if you have an excuse to go there!

And now it's Monday again, *yawn*. I must away to bed. After discovering the shocking state of my fitness on our Mountains walk, I am on a new exercise regime and was dragged out in my jogging gear before the clock even hit 7am this morning. And it was raining so double sad face :( We're on again for tomorrow morning. I almost died going up a gentle slope so something must be done!

Also please spare a thought for a guy I know named James. He worked at HCF with me until a couple of weeks ago when he left to go travelling, and is a close friend of my friend Karl. He was involved in a serious accident on Fraser Island, Queensland on Saturday morning, reported in the Times here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6125177.ece. He is one of the two passengers who were airlifted to Brisbane and is currently in intensive care.

Dah dah daaaah...bloody old news!!!

Happy Easter, one and all! Easter in Australia seems to be roughly the same as Easter in the UK, except for one fatal thing that we did not realise: EVERYTHING IS SHUT. Public holidays I find a little bit odd here because their trading laws seem quite strict. So whereas in UK one can potter around the shops a little and it's generally like a second Sunday, here pubs are about the only thing open. You can't even buy takeaway alcohol to drink quietly in your home on a bank holiday it seems, yet you can go to a pub. Which is greatly frustrating when trying to buy a bottle of wine on Not So Good Friday to take to a friend's birthday party.

BUT first, let me take you back to a pre-Easter era; no, not pre-Jesus, but the era of the weekend before Easter....if such a weekend can be considered an era.

The weather has been nothing recently if not damp. There have been some pleasant days but the weathermen seem intent on conspiring against me to make them fall on weekdays when I am, of course, in work. Last weekend was no exception; it was, for the most part, overwhelmingly damp. That is not to say it rained the whole time, fortunately, but there was a certain moistness to the air throughout.
On saturday we headed to a cafe in Pott's Point for a late late breakfast, then walked up to the water.



Then wandered around to Mrs Macquarie's Point, which is...well, exactly where it looks in the photo below; the next pointy out bit of headland to the east of the harbour, which offers some pleasant views.









View to the East, away from the harbour.

We wandered through to the Botanic Gardens where I enjoyed this Queensland Bottle Tree:



And was bemused by the topiary letters "sex and death" in front of the tropical pyramid:



We looked at the lovable bats, still roosting in great numbers (although they are sadly damaging many of the trees and need to be gently discouraged) and read a bat fact sheet from the visitor centre, which was interesting.

On Sunday, Mr L. Rogue, our friendly house platypus stowed away in my bag to investigate an exhibition on Charles Darwin, the advertising poster for which having suggested that he may have been of some import in the development of the notion of evolution. It was indeed an interesting exhibition, focussing on Darwin's voyage to Australia and how his findings there helped shape his theories. And indeed Mr L. Rogue and his kind did turn out to have been a bit important. When Darwin saw platypuses on his travels, he noted that it behaved in the same way as a water rat, in the same habitat as a water rat, and yet looked different. If God made everything, why put a water rat in some places and a platypus in another? Of course, the platypus and the water rat have both evolved and adapted to fit their specific environments. The platypus held himself up to be the embodiment of evolution. What a vain, and yet lovable platypus.