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Yes, I am still around! Just enjoying Sydney too much to spend much time on the computer. We have been here now about three weeks, and every day has been amazing. Sydney truly lives up to its reputation as a vibrant and dynamic city. Every time I cross - or even catch a glimpse of - the Sydney Harbour Bridge, I get a buzz. It is such an iconic world-famous view that I find it exciting every time I see it (imagine how I am going to be when we reach Uluru!) I have yet to walk to the top of it (the boys and I resisted the urge, and decided to wait until Paul returned to do it together) but we have driven across it many times (usually inadvertently as I still don’t always read the GPS accurately and the five to six lane highway can be a bit daunting/confusing), and we have taken the ferry purely to go under the bridge - just as grand!
The beaches have been a huge attraction for us - I had forgotten how beautiful the beaches here are (I was of the firm belief that Perth had the best city beaches -
now, I am not too sure…) and I had also reconciled myself to two months without beach, it being winter and all. We have been incredibly lucky with the weather (in fact, I heard on the radio today that this has been the warmest start to winter in years!) and I have been taking full advantage of the warmth and sunshine, dragging the kids to the beach pretty much every day. We are ideally located here at the Sandham’s home, only five minutes from Bondi Beach where there are great beaches and rock pools to explore. The waves this side though are a bit too rough to venture into, even if it were a tad warmer. Real dumpers! We did discover one sheltered inlet along this coast which was calm: Clovelly Beach. The weather was warmish, but Oliver was itching to go for a swim and as Paul was still away, I had to fill the breach, and, with great trepidation, I entered the water. Cold though it was, the view underneath was breathtaking. We had been advised that there was good snorkelling here, so that is what Oliver and I did. I can’t tell you how many fish we
saw, all different sizes and colours, including a huge blue groper. So amazing, I temporarily forgot how cold I was (there were probably only five people in the water at the time, including Oliver and myself!). As luck would have it, as I emerged, the clouds blustered in, and there was no sunshine to warm me, but it was worth it! Another day we dragged ourselves out of bed early to watch Paul and Mark play beach rugby at Tamarama Beach and to check out the surfers (well, one of us did the latter!)
We crossed the bridge as well and ventured further afield, visiting Coogee Beach and Balmoral, another lovely stretch of beach with no crashing waves - ideal for children, and some great fish and chips to be had as well. We went here with my mother who joined us for a few days while Paul was away. It was really wonderful to see her again, and to spend time with her in Sydney. We lived here for a few years until I was 7, before moving to Papua New Guinea. Together with the boys, we took a trip down memory lane, and visited Enmore, the suburb
we used to live in, and spotted the terrace house that was our home for three years. The terrace house still stands, though the street is greener than I remembered (my mother said when we lived there the trees were very small - obviously in the 35-odd years since living there, these trees have grown somewhat!). The only other distinct memory I had of the street was the corner sweet shop, where my sister Nicole and I would spend 5 cents and come home with a big bag of mixed lollies, as well as a huge factory which was at the bottom of our street. While the factory has been demolished and replaced with a park, the corner shop still stands, but has been converted into a house.
My mother suggested we visit my old school, Stanmore Primary. I didn’t expect to have any memories of this, but wow, as soon as we arrived, I remembered the grand old trees in the playground, and I vividly recalled playing under the shade of the trees, playing hop scotch, and forming a circle with my friends and singing “he’s got the whole world in his hands,” Having moved countries regularly from
when I was seven until I was about 12, I never really had a tangible link to my early childhood, just memories (a fact I am daily reminded of living in Paul’s childhood home, with the boys attending the school he attended, and even today, staying with Paul’s childhood friend Mark, as they reminisce about the mischief they got up to as boys). While I have no regrets about this, it was nice to have this chance to again see aspects of my childhood, and more special, to do this with my mother and to share our memories.
We also went to Balmain, home to my mother’s best friend Inka (who still lives in Balmain) and again the memories came flooding back; Elkington Park where Kina (Inka’s daughter and my friend, who I caught up with again in Melbourne) and I spent a lot of time, the salt water tidal pool which was our ‘swimming hole’ (I distinctly remember it being closed for a while because a shark had managed to find its way in), and the rocks and caves we used to explore. Hmmm, very nostalgic!
What I did not expect to find in Sydney were the
vast tracts of bushland and beautiful parks that are so accessible, and so close. Here you have the biggest and most populous city in Australia, with all its hustle and bustle, and nestled within it are forests, parks, lakes - here the bush really is at your doorstep. Naturally, we have gone exploring, sometimes much to the dismay of the kids, but they eventually stop groaning and enjoy themselves. If fact, yesterday we decided to trek out to Manly to visit Ocean World. On stepping out of Ocean World, we came across a sign indicating an 9km Scenic Walkway from Manly to the Spit. Ignoring the fact that it was already 3pm, but cognisant of the apparently clear skies (it had been raining pretty much non-stop for the past two days) we headed off (the adults with great excitement, the boys, admittedly, with some reluctance). We walked and walked, through native bushland, clambered along rocks, across sandy beaches, passing Aboriginal stone carvings (our first authentic Aboriginal carvings this trip!) and even through pockets of subtropical rainforests. While the rain above held off, our shoes quickly became soaked from the muddy footpath, and meanwhile, the skies darkened. Neither Paul nor I
had anticipated the ‘bushiness’ of this walk - much of the time, we didn’t appear to be near civilisation at all. Being winter, night fell quite early - at about 5pm in fact. And we were still traipsing along. By then we had walked an impressive 6kms! Another 500 metres onwards, we spied stairs leading up to a road which we gratefully climbed up, in the dark, calves aching. And all I can say is, thank God for cell phones! We called a taxi, got a lift back to our car, and then headed out to a well-deserved pasta dinner. We all ate and slept very well that night!
The cultural side of Sydney has not been neglected by us either. The boys and I visited the Museum of Natural History, and they are eager to go back there with their father. We also went to the Powerhouse Museum which happened to have an Abba Exhibition. Yet another timewarp for me! I have read somewhere that you are not a true Australian unless you have an unhealthy obsession with Abba. Well, I have to confess, I do enjoy Abba, and I was in my element at this exhibition, where
you could sing along to Abba songs, go on stage and sing AND dance to Abba, etc etc. I confess we did not see much of the actual museum on that visit, but we did get a free family pass back into the museum so Paul will take them there while I am away.
We were also very fortunate to be here to see Walking With Dinosaurs. What an amazing show! It is a live show (I think based on the BBC television series) featuring massive, life-size mechanical and puppet dinosaurs. We had seen a clip on youtube and weren’t terribly impressed, but when you see it live, wow! the quality and sheer size of the dinosaurs were impressive enough, but the way the dinosaurs were operated - you really felt like you had stepped back in time. It was simply brilliant. I was awestruck! And the icing on the cake, at least for me, was the commentary. A palaeontologist guided the audience through the evolution of dinosaurs: from how the world was created, to the symbiotic evolution of insects and flowers (the stage props, particularly the plants, are equally as brilliant as the dinosaurs!), right through to the
meteor collision and dinosaur extinction. A story told succinctly and often with humour. And there was only one terrified child in the audience, and it happened to belong to our Mighty Quinn, who spent a lot of time quivering behind the chair. Afterwards though he was quite effusive about the show. Go figure!
Well, I think that is about it for today. There is still so much to see and do in Sydney, so it is quite fortunate that we are here for another month before pushing on. Though Paul will be doing a lot of the sightseeing from here on in, as I will be going to Perth for a couple of weeks to try and sort through all my belongings that have been gathering dust in the garage - another trip down memory lane coming up! We are also taking advantage of this hiatus by concentrating on the boys’ school work. The local library here is fantastic, and makes a very cosy school room. And bribing them is easy - their reward is to take out a book that has caught their eye, or even a DVD - for free!
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Michelle Thorne
non-member comment
Hi all!!!
Well it looks like you're all having a blast! Love the pics... enjoy the journey, Michelle :)