Strawberry Fields forever

I arrived at work this morning to find an inexplicable pile of avocados on my desk. Also on my desk, a present from our department's middle manager. I brought all of these things home. This brings the Christmas 2010 grand present total to a staggering....THREE. Oh well, at least I have a lot of avocados. Yum.

What HAS HAPPENED? It has been a long time since I last blogged. Oh, Mark's parents came to visit! We had a week up in Port Stephens around 3 hours drive from Sydney on the north coast of New South Wales, a week of perfect weather sandwiched in between days of heavy rain. Lady Luck smiled upon us.

We rented a little flat for the week in Nelson Bay and spent the first couple of days lazing around on the beach at the bottom of the road and buying mangos from the market. Around the third day, we caught the ferry over the bay to Tea Gardens and Hawk's Nest, watched dolphins play in the river and found the beautiful Jimmy's Beach.



We drove for a day to the Hunter Valley and visited some beautiful vineyards - wine tasted at Vinden Estates out in the most perfect courtyard with the most perfect view.



Also visited the well-known Tyrrell's wines and went on a very enjoyable and informative tour of their wine-making facilities.



There were so many big barrels!

A long drive home (and a dead kangaroo :( ) later, we refreshed ourselves with a good nights sleep ready for a hike up to Tomaree Head, which gave amazing views out over the ocean on one side, Shoal Bay on another and over the little ocean beaches of Zenith, Wreck and Box on the third.





One of my favourite things was our visit to see the sand dunes at Stockton Beach. At around 32km long and 1km wide they are one of the largest mobile sand masses in the world and are fascinating, desolate and desertlike, especially considering we visited on a savagely hot day.





It was kind of an odd pilgrimage as I have this fascination with sand dunes and their mythology. In my mind they are just places where everything is very hot and very absurd. I guess I have read too much Kobo Abe. But my goodness I loved that novel.

In which I make a rare foray outside Sydney

My goodness the weather has gone wonderful. Walking around the last few days in glorious sunshine, no coat, not even a jumper on. Perhaps spring has made it through. Time to plant some herbs.

Last week I was down in Wollongong, a couple of hours south of Sydney, for a work conference. It was long and tiring, but this was the view from my hotel room:



At 5pm on Thursday evening.



At 7am the following morning.

A busy few days were punctuated with walks on the beach and evening fun times with my work buddies. The last night was a Friday 13th themed dinner and ball, and everyone went all out on the fancy dress! I went as Alex from Clockwork Orange, borrowing Mark's white skinny jeans and braces and adding a black bowler hat to complete the look!

On Saturday, after it was all over, I checked out of the hotel and had a little walk round Wollongong. It's a hit and miss kind of place. Nice along one stretch of the water, a bit bland in the town itself and some parts seemed a bit run down.



I didn't hang around too long and headed for the station, where I caught a south coast line train 50 minutes further south to the little town of Kiama.

Kiama is a very attractive place and has a lot of historic buildings in its little centre. It's set around a little bay with a shingle beach, the main sandy surf beach being in the next bay down.



The main attraction however is the blowhole, up on the cliff, a natural feature where seawater is forced up through a hole in the cliff creating a huge plume and a very loud gurgle. There is a viewing platform built all around the blowhole, so I hung out there for a bit. I could have watched it for hours, it was brilliant! I never expected it to shoot out so high in the air.





Lighthouse and blowhole viewing platform.

Blowhole visited, I had a slow wander back to the station. My bag with all my stuff in from the conference was becoming pretty heavy so it was time to head for home. Unfortunately, the train ride was a long 3 hours, but there was a lot of great scenery on the way, along the coast and, further north, the Royal National Park.

Got home and Mark met me at the station with much needed Shenkin coffee! Then we spent the evening eating thai food and drinking wine up at Thai Passion in Newtown, before a long long sleep.

Seaplane birthday

Well I mentioned my birthday in the previous post, but I have not yet mentioned someone else who had a rather important birthday recently - Mark turned 30 back in the middle of May!

It was a really good day and I was really glad we were in Sydney for it as it gave me the chance to organise something really special that you just couldn't really match in the UK - a trip on the seaplane!



I booked us a 30 minute scenic flight with Sydney Seaplanes in Rose Bay. I also kept it a secret from Mark so he didn't really work it out until we got on the Rose Bay ferry from Circular Quay at 9am that morning! We had a lovely quiet 10 minute ferry trip across the harbour (it was a weekday and everything always seems very peaceful on a weekday when you are used to only doing stuff at weekends!), and we were a bit early so had a gander round the park in Rose Bay, which was full of Rose Bay yummy mummies watching their toddler groups or whatever it is you do when you are a Rose Bay yummy mummy.

Then we went over to the Seaplane office - I think Mark was just relieved we weren't doing the Harbour Bridge Climb or doing a skydive or something (vertigoooo)! Had a quick safety talk (exactly like you get on a big plane!) and boarded the plane ready to go! There were 7 of us on the plane - Mark & I, a couple and their young son from Melbourne, a guy on holiday from the UK who was really into light aircraft, and the pilot. It was actually really comfortable - the inside of the plane was really nicely done out and very clean and comfortable. Our pilot was great too - he told us all about the plane and pointed out everything we flew past so we knew what we were looking down at. It looked so different from the air!



We were off! It was a really clear day, but quite windy, which meant it was a little bumpy but on the upside, you could literally see for miles. Right out into the Blue Mountains inland, and out over endless sea the other side. It was great. We flew up over the harbour, along the cliffs and up the Northern Beaches, hugging the coast all the way.





Within 15 minutes, we were up flying over Pittwater, the water dotted with hundreds of boats. Kuringai National Park stretched out to our left, while we curved to the left and circled Barrenjoey Head and a magnificently gleaming Palm Beach.



Heading back south again, we ended on a loop over the Harbour and the towers of the CBD before coming into land in Rose Bay again.



After getting our land-legs back again, we took the ferry back to the city and made our way to Waterloo for lunch at Cafe Sopra, before home for a cup of tea. The evening was spent splashing out on an absolutely wonderful 8-course degustation at Bécasse in the city. Hopefully a memorable 30th birthday!

In which I become older, eat a lot, and be spoilt.

It's so waaarm today. Well, me with my English-person-temperature-tolerance thought it was warm anyway. I also saw a mega-cockroach scuttling across the pavement on the way home from work this evening, a sight normally reserved for summer, so I'm obviously not the only one that thought it was warm.










Mark and I walked the full Bondi-Coogee cliff walk over the June bank holiday weekend. It was actually the first time we'd ever done the whole thing in one go, which was surprising! We did it both directions for good measure, which took about 3 hours with a good bit of dilly-dallying thrown in. It was a glorious day for it, blazing sun, warm but not hot. I carried my jacket most of the way but wasn't sticky and uncomfortable. I guess something like this is much better done in winter than summer.
When we got back to Bondi we went straight to Fishmongers on Hall Road and STUFFED ourselves on fish and chips.

My birthday was fun! I especially liked having a birthday on the Saturday of a bank holiday weekend! And it was the Queen's Birthday Holiday so I was able to fib that I was actually the Queen and the day off was in my honour. We got up and went for breakfast at Black Star in Newtown - delicious pastries and coffee and it was great to sit out on the pavement in the winter sun. Then we hit the CBD for some shopping - I ended up with a great leather jacket and a new blouse - and we ate lunch at the antipasto bar in the food hall of David Jones. Cheese and antipasto plates and a glass of wine later, we headed to Surry Hills for a little more shopping and a coffee in Kawa on Crown Street, before heading back to Newtown for a cocktail in Corridor followed by dinner at new restaurant Bloodwood.

Bloodwood was a really good experience. It's quite an industrial looking place, with exposed bulbs and pipes along the ceilings, so a bit different to the average cosy restaurant set up. The menu consists of lots of smaller dishes made for sharing. We ordered cuttlefish salad, polenta chips with gorgonzola dipping sauce, mushrooms in red wine sauce and trifle for pudding (posh trifle!). Haha, I was on the phone to mi madre and told her I had "mushrooms on toast and then trifle" and realised it sounded like I'd been to a rubbish cafe in the 70s or something. It was good, honest!

For my birthday I got cake forks, cheese knife, cake slice, the new Snow Leopard operating system for Mac (haha, a bit like the Simpsons episode where Homer buys Marge the bowling ball that says "Homer" on it hahaha), and SEWING MACHINE(!!!) from Mark, sewing bits (including the best pin cushion EVER) and books from Mark's parents, and Alice in Wonderland DVD, jewellry and poems from mi madre and padre. What a lucky pie !!

After all that fun it was so hard to go back to work after the bank holiday! It doesn't help that my job has been a bit frenetic these past couple of weeks. It's the end of financial year on wednesday this week so the pressure is on!

Mark has been a bit under the weather this week - on Thursday morning he was in bed until 9.30am which is quite worrying for someone who considers 7am to be an EPIC lie in. He's a bit better today though so hopefully a great deal of marauding can be done at the weekend. We need sun to be healthy!

Das Erdbeben in Chile

The week began with a major tsunami warning along Australia's east coast on Sunday, after Chile's earthquake. Ocean beaches were closed from Bondi and Manly in Sydney right up to Queensland, as raised water levels and dangerous currents were predicted. Fortunately, we escaped unscathed.

What I found astounding though was the way people still continued to visit the beaches, even going in the sea, while the warning was in place, exasperating lifeguards. Quite a contrast to the situation shown in a news report on Samoa, also on tsunami alert, which was devastated by a tsunami last year. People there were panicking, fearing a repeat performance, while in Sydney people were travelling to the ocean to 'watch the waves'. What do people need in order to learn? Do they need a 50ft wave to crush them to death? People are stupid. They make no sense.

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Saturday was a scorching hot, clear day with bright blue skies over Sydney. We pottered around the corner for a late breakfast at Bitton (amazing scrambled eggs), then to Sydney Park for a lie down under the shade of the trees, then back up to King Street for a juice in South End Cafe. I'd not been to South End before but had read some good reviews, and it seemed like a really nice cafe. Lovely decor and a really homely, cosy feel. They had a really good range of juice options (I had my usual apple and ginger but they offered a good selection including beetroot which I always think is a good sign that people are taking their juice seriously). I must return to try the food at some point.

Sunday we were up early and off to Balmoral Beach, which being further in the harbour seemed to have no tsunami issues to be raised. It wasn't that nice a day in the end, overcast and windy, but we lay a long time on the beach, reading.

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I lost an earring having a picnic in Sydney Park a couple of weeks ago, one that Lep sent me for Christmas, little hoops with birds on. We were sitting in a more secluded area of the park and by the time we left it was dark and there were no lights. We had only walked about 20 metres across the grass when I realised it had falled out so I assumed that if I went back in the light, I would probably find it as it was unlikely anyone would have been through and picked it up. But unfortunately it was nowhere to be found in the grass. I keep finding the other one all lonesome in the bottom of my bag - I never know what to do with lone earrings - and it makes me sad :(

Cultural Review - January 2010

Not so much a resolution, more of a notion, but in any case I decided that I needed to get out more.

January in Sydney signifies the annual rolling round of the Sydney Festival, an arts festival in a similar vein to the Edinburgh International Festival with elements of the more lowbrow 'fringe'. A perfect opportunity for some cultural pursuits!

But, before getting on to that, I must just say what brilliant fun I had at the cricket! We attended the first day of the second test between Australia and Pakistan at Sydney Cricket Ground on 3rd January. It was so exciting!! Unfortunately the weather was bad and the start of play was delayed until after lunch by rain (wow, just like in England), but they finished an hour later so we still got the best part of a full day.



The SCG is so big and shiny! I'd only been to Trent Bridge before, which is nice and pleasant in a way that you imagine an English cricket ground should be, but the SCG is just so different. And so huge. I'd only seen county cricket at Trent Bridge so the ground wasn't that full, but the SCG was heaving!

Pakistan bowled first and they managed to bowl out all the Australians! Which was crazy but also good because we got to see the whole team bat, although none of them for very long. Mark was excited to see Ricky Ponting bat but he ended up being out on the first ball! We bought tickets for the non-alcohol stand and there were quite a few Pakistan supporters sitting near by, so we got quite into Pakistan and did a lot of cheering!



After Australia all got out, we got to see Pakistan bat briefly, but only a couple of overs. I never realised cricket could be so exciting, and I can't wait to go again!

Sydney Festival

If you go down to Martin Place very early in the morning (like, 6am - the stall opens at 8 but you will need to get in the queue and some people camp overnight) on every day of the Festival, there are a few tickets available for every show that day for just $25. Mark decided to give this a go to see if we could get tickets for a new German production of Hamlet by Thomas Ostermeier of Schaubühne Berlin that was on at Sydney Theatre. He went to queue in Martin Place at 6.30am on a Monday morning, but this proved too late, although we did get one $25 ticket. Still, we really wanted to see it and there were a few full price tickets left for that night, so we got one of those.

And we were glad we did because it was great (there were subtitles on a screen at the top for anyone who's wondering if it's easy to understand Hamlet in German!). The pace was very fast and the whole thing was very in your face, with a set that came right out into the stalls. The guy who played Hamlet was really quite good at going mad, and his performance went from hilarious to shocking to repulsive and back again. And they had rain on stage and I'm always a fan of rain on stage.

Another play we wanted to see, and did manage to get $25 tickets for this time, was a new adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author.
Six Characters is a metafictional play, concerning the arrival of the eponymous characters during the editing process of a documentary (in the original play it was during rehearsals for another play). They insist that they are characters looking for an author, and demand that one of the production staff step into this role. One of them eventually agrees, and they begin to play out the life stories of the characters, in the process posing many questions about the increasingly blurred boundaries between fiction and reality.

The idea is a pretty clever one and I would actually like to see the original play to see if it works better. The first half of this production was very good, but it seemed to lose its way slightly towards the end, becoming a little bit too clever and trying to incorporate various in-jokes which led to it seeming a little rambling. It was super-well acted though, particularly on the part of the Father (I didn't know the actor's name but his CV included a lot of big-name British tv drama work) and the Stepdaughter.

Last weekend, the Festival drew to a close with the Opera in the Domain. This year's offering was a production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide, which seems an odd choice for an opera, since it...well...isn't an opera. It's a musical. Still, I thought it was great and we had a fun time, although Mark was not convinced since he hates musicals (except Cabaret)!

So there we go, that's the more interesting features of January. We also had some days out at Manly and Balmoral, but other than that, just money-saving and trying to keep cool, really.





Now I shall go and spend the rest of my Sunday afternoon making scones I think.

Avalon - Palm Beach - Pittwater

February is off to a wet start. It's rained everyday in varying degrees, and this weekend has so far seen some serious torrential rain that shows no sign of letting up (it's so heavy and loud this afternoon I couldn't hear the sound on the film I was watching!).
Being confined to the house does make for a pleasant, relaxing break every now and again though, and gives me a chance to catch up on a few things. This afternoon I booked us vegan meals on our Japan flights and then embarked on several hours of note-taking from our Japan guidebooks. My goodness there are so many things I want to see and do! I've only covered the Northern Tokyo areas of Asakusa, Ueno and Yanaka so far and I already have about a month's worth of sightseeing opportunities!

January gave us some changeable weather, regular showers but enough sunny days to make up for it. One of the best days turned out to be the Australia Day public holiday, on Tuesday 26th, so Mark and I headed off for a day out up in the northernmost edge of Sydney.

Our final destination was Palm Beach, the furthest north of Sydney's Northern Beaches suburbs, just over 40km from the city. We made an early start, arriving at Wynyard in good time to board the 9.30am L90 bus. As the bus journey was a long one (over 90 minutes in total), we had decided to get day tickets so we could get on and off the bus to break the journey up a bit.

The L90 meanders up through most of the Northern Beaches and you get some good views of the coastline at Dee Why, Collaroy, Narrabeen and Newport. After a perusal of our guidebooks, we settled on stopping off at Avalon, which is actually the last suburb the bus goes through before Palm Beach itself. Whale Beach actually lies in between the two, but the bus doesn't visit it, sticking to the main road into Palm Beach.

Australia Day events in some areas led to the limited road infrastructure of the more northerly suburbs becoming rather busy, so we ended up being on the bus 90 minutes just to get to Avalon, when it should have been little more than an hour. But oh, it was worth it! We hopped off the bus when we saw a sign for the beach carpark and pootled across the wide uninspiring main road to find the view opening out in front of us into a glorious golden sandy beach bordered by rocky, bush-covered headland.



It had such a different feel to the built-up city beach suburbs. From the beach you can only see a handful of buildings, most of which are just the toilet block and changing rooms. That, coupled with the distinct lack of people when compared to the more central beaches gave it a very tucked away feel and made you feel so lucky to have discovered it.

We had planned to just stop off for 30 minutes or so but we ended up lying under the shade of the trees for over an hour and ate most of our picnic lunch. We then headed back for the next bus to take us the last 20 minutes or so journey into Palm Beach. Palm Beach is basically a slender peninsula, on the eastern side of which lies the ocean, and on the western side is Pittwater and the mouth of the Hawkesbury River. As the bus continued north, the land grew narrower until at some points you could almost see water on both sides.

We hopped off the bus just before it pulled onto the beach road and walked across the park onto the sand. Palm Beach is home to some of Australia's most affluent people and this is very clearly reflected in a lot of the real estate in the area. As we walked onto the beach, you could see why it attracts people. It is absolutely stunning. And huge. I didn't realise what a long beach it was, it goes on for miles!



I didn't end up taking many photos in the end, but you can see some posh houses up on the cliff there!
Palm Beach was a lot busier than Avalon, which makes sense. Palm Beach is quite a tourist attraction due to it doubling up as the fictional Summer Bay, setting of long running soap opera Home & Away. So whereas Avalon was populated mostly with local families, Palm Beach had a greater mix of younger people. I don't think I have ever watched Home & Away in my life, so I can't tell you much in relation to that, although there is apparently some bit of set you can see!

We swam in the sea for a good long while and it was entirely enjoyable. Then we packed up and used our bus passes to hop round to the western, Pittwater side of the peninsula. This side has the Palm Beach ferry wharf, from where you can get ferries to locations around Pittwater, as well as up to Wagstaff and Ettalong to the north of the area.



We decided to take a trip just across to the other side of the water to Great Mackarel Beach, and we had a little walk up and down the wharf side whilst waiting for the boat.



The ferry return trip at about $13 is worth it in itself, even if you don't get off the boat. The views from the boat are spectacular. As you leave Palm Beach's shores behind, you get some great views of Barrenjoey Head and the lighthouse, as well as a good view of the west side of Palm Beach itself.





Across Pittwater are the shores of Kuringai National Park. All the stops on this ferry trip are within the park.



The ferry makes a few stop-offs at some tiny wharves nestled in dense bushland, followed by Currawong Beach and, finally, Great Mackerel Beach, where we get off.



Great Mackerel Beach is a tiny beach on the shores of the National Park, accessible only by boat. It was glorious. Aside from a few rustic looking beachhouses there was nothing there and you just felt so far away from everything, bliss! Steep cliffs on each side were coated in thick, dark bush and the expanse of Pittwater stretched peacefully out in front of you.



There had obviously been a few people over there earlier in the day having Australia Day celebrations, but most people had packed up now so we had the beach practically to ourselves. The only downside was that we could only stay on the beach for an hour as the last ferry service of the day soon came by to collect us and we returned to the mainland.

The sun was going down by now and there were some amazing views in the fading light back across the water.



Unfortunately, we then had to get back on the L90 for an uninspiring and long journey back to the city in the dark. But it was a brilliant day out and I couldn't believe we'd not been up there before. I guess we just didn't really know what was there before I looked into it. Hope we can find time to go back before too long!

escapism

The weather has been a little too much of late.



If you have never been in 41 degrees, you cannot imagine what it is like to be in 41 degrees. The air is like a desert bubble that clings around you, oppressive and suffocating. Haze and dust obscures the distance, and your immediate surroundings wobble and wave like you are viewing them through water. Being outside makes your head swim and your eyes sticky. The bushfire risk level is set at the grimly informal 'Catastrophic'.
That was the second day of 40+ degrees in less than a month, and the rest of the time has maintained a near-constant high 20s - mid-30s. Hot, endless, relentless heat.

I can't sleep at night, only in the early hours. I am zombied-out all week, then when the weekend comes I sleep endlessly and when I'm awake I am woozy and empty-headed.
This week looks set to be cool so I'm hoping to recover in 20 degree days and chilly nights.



We've both had various stresses of late so have been trying to take time to get out of the city and break routine a little. Last week we tripped out to Watson's Bay, where we sat under the trees and read and relaxed and got fish and chips and ice cream and coca cola.







An outdoor wedding was taking place just off to our right, and they had their photos done along the esplanade.

Today (Sunday) we tripped out to beautiful Balmoral, one of my favourite suburbs of Sydney. Lise, a friend of ours who's a PhD philosophy student at Macquarie uni joined us for a while and we sat in the shade, then retreated to the Bather's Pavillion for darjeeling and coffees.









Yesterday, we spent a long time in Redfern at my current favourite Sydney cafe, Baffi and Mo. Then I spent a delightful evening barbecuing prawns at Katherine and Darren's in Petersham.

Now I need to STOP watching Kill Bill Vol. 1 and go seek out my poop hat for slumber.

Queensland: Day 5 - 16th August 2009

Day 5: Port Douglas

When one lives on the east coast of Australia, one cannot ever watch a sunset over the sea as one could if one lived on the west coast. One can however watch a sunrise. This was an impossibility in Sydney however as we do not live next to a beach and could not get to a beach in time for the sunrise. Cue Four Mile Beach in Port Douglas - 5 minutes walk from our apartment. Sunrise approximately 06.35am, easy. So on Sunday morning, that's what we did.



Arrived at the beach at about 5.55am, it was deserted aside from for a hippy family who were hurriedly stamping out a campfire and packing up their children, having obviously ignored the 'no camping on the beach' signs.





The Sunrise Team, at this stage consisting of Bec, Mark and me.



The sky starts to brighten shortly after 6am.



Pere joined the Sunrise Team (sounds like we are getting ready to present an early morning daytime TV show??) at around 06.15am.



Light, but not quite full sun....



Lovely sea. It was still warm, I tested it.



Here it comes....!



Woohoo!



Eerie light -everything went bright orange.



Looonnnng shadows.



People started to appear on the beach as the sun arrived. A large number of joggers, cyclists and a surprising number of people with all their beach stuff ready to start sunbathing!

We went home for a nap, then Bec went to the Sunday Markets where she drank a coconut (they stick a straw in it for you - it wasn't very tasty, apparently), Mark and I went to the ice cream shop, then we all went on the beach for the rest of the day.