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Published: January 23rd 2006
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Ah, the famed beach of Bondi… we had to go see what the fuss is all about. The day we went, we actually turned the trip into a complete Bondi Experience, in that we also visited a Bondi exhibition at the Museum of Sydney, and took in a short film festival visit later on in the day which is being held at Bondi Pavilions.
The exhibition was brilliant. It’s a whole large floor of the museum which has been dedicated to the history of beach life in Sydney, using films from the 50s & 60s (which were really funny - a bit like a cross between Carry On flicks and old British Public Information videos), amazing photography and real life used postcards from various periods in time which had been donated by members of the public. There are also actual bathing suits worn by Lifeguards, stories from newspapers, shark jaws (from sharks caught in the Bondi area), and various other paraphernalia from the past and present which gives a true reflection of what it means to be a beach lover, a surfer, a sun baker, a lifeguard, jet skier, shark hunter or whoever else you may imagine might hang around
the sand and surf.
The beach culture in Sydney is very much different to what we experienced on the West coast. EVERYONE goes to the beach. All the time. Everyone wears thongs (flip flops to you and I) and their swimmers (swimming costumes to you and I) under their regular clothes - just incase an opportunity arises - and so many people walk around with towels slung across their shoulders and surf / body boards under their arms. This is probably due to a number of reasons. Firstly, there are loads, and I mean loads of beaches around Sydney. The water comes inland from the ocean in a haphazard fashion, creating tons of harbours and mini beaches everywhere. Just about every suburb seems to be on the water which makes it easy for the residents to head off to the beach whenever they get the chance. Also - we think the heat is probably a big factor too. Its so humid here and often the air is so still with practically no breeze, that its fairly difficult to cool down. So what do the locals do? Hey presto, they’re off to the …beach!
Havianas (pronounced Havanas) are
the most popular brand of flip flop here. I’m going to call them flip flops and not thongs, because every time I hear the word thong, it makes me think of G strings. I have a particularly disturbing image that keeps popping into my head, of Peter Stringfellow in those awful leopard print miniscule pants, going on about beurifful ladies, and how he wants to make lurve to them. Mingin. I really should see the doctor as its giving me panic attacks. Anyhoooooo, I was telling you about the flip flops. The Havianas. I got a pair. Gold ones, and I love them. They are THE most comfy FFs I’ve ever had. I must congratulate our chum Paula on her exquisite taste in assisting me to discover these wonderful gems. The gold ones are the newest colour, and tres trendy, so I’m down with the kids aswell for a change. Yay!!!
Have we mentioned before, that some people don’t wear shoes here? It really is the weirdest thing. I keep seeing all these folk walking round in their bare feet, and it’s not just the young uns either, the oldies are at it too. We’re interested to know what
the rate of ‘glass up foot’ incidence is here, as we reckon it must be quite high. On the bus to Bondi, there were these three surfer guys, about 16 or so, sitting behind us. One of them had no shoes on, and he was picking something out of the sole of his foot, and there was a little bit of blood. One of his pals, who was wearing Havianas incidentally, (not gold ones though) was trying to tell him that he should start wearing ‘thongs’ (uh, P. Stringfellow in my head, yuk!) but the 'no shoes' dude was having none of it. He was going ‘ Man, I don’t DO shoes - what do you think I am?’. I was thinking to myself, ‘I know what you are, you’re a muppet. walking about in your bare feet’.
Bondi beach is pretty big in size, and its probably one of the most busy stretches of sand I’ve ever seen. The only thing I can compare it with is maybe Majorca or something when the Spain boom hit in the late 1970s. There’s such a lot going on, and some of the photos we took look like ‘Where’s Wally’s’. We
didn’t do any swimming or sunbaking as we had to make tracks sharpish to the Pavilion for the marathon short film session we’d booked. The shorts turned out to be pretty good in a wacky sort of way, and our session was made up of 8 films of varying size, and style. We got to rate each movie out of 5, and then submit our views on a form. The scores we gave will help decide the awards which will be given at the end of the film festival. We also get entered into a prize draw to win a Mini Cooper. How fab would that be if we won. Obviously we’d sell it, but we’d maybe drive it about Aus first, doing wheelies, and Hollywood tyres, that sort of thing. We do miss our little Cream and Black boy that we had to leave behind when we came away. We were quite emotional when we found one of his brothers outside with a soft top promoting the Flickerfest. Ahh, the memories….
Anyway - all too soon, it was time to head back into Sydney. We had some great Chinese food in Chinatown before sprinting down to the ferry
port at Circular Quay to catch the last ride home of the night. It’s a lovely way to travel back after a day out, as the Manly ferry passes the Opera house, which is all lit up at night, and you also receive a fabulous view of the Sydney city sky line, and the Harbour bridge.
That’s the end of this posting, however we’ll knock out another blog soon. We’ve been out and about doing lots of things and have loads more photos to share with you of our time in Sydney so far.
Love, Alan & Shaz. xxx
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