Dad's Bucket List

---

My Dad wrote a list for me of places he'd visited when he was in Sydney in 1965 and emailed them to me the other day. I thought that it'd be nice if, on my way back from the Blue Mountains, I visited some, if not all, of them just so that I could say that I'd visited them too. Sadly the horse incident put a stop to those plans for Saturday.

Today however is Monday and despite the fact my back is giving me serious gip, my face is causing people to stop and stare and my eyebrow looks like a plucking disaster (to almost quote Sam, Heidi's friend, over dinner), I'm going to brave it.

I set off into town and had a wander around The Rocks. The streets are quaint and cobbled, and are home to Sydney's oldest pub, The Fortune of War, as well as numerous designer boutiques and trendy cafes. There's a feel of London to them - you can picture in the late 1800s people milling around this area, and the buildings have remained pretty true to their history around these parts.

My next mission was to catch the bus towards the Northern Beaches. The bus takes you over the Harbour Bridge, which was in itself a nice little treat. Over into Neutral Bay, Mosman, Manly Vale and then onto Dee Why, which looked like a beautiful little surf beach. Sadly I didn't have time to jump out of the bus, but the views we got driving along the coast road were stunning. There are a couple of golf courses here that shoot out into the ocean which I thought Dad would love (both near to Collaroy, and its miles of golden sand). The buildings 'up north' are a bit more bland in my opinion than the eastern suburbs I've become used to. The buildings lack a bit of character although there are still a fair few historic plots scattered among the more 1960s/70s redbrick creations along the way.

I carried on to Mona Vale, where an ex-St C's pupil has a cafe called the jammy cow. Had the most gorgeous veggie lunch in there - veggie stack and lentil salad - plus a mango and passionfruit smoothy. Piggy but amazingly yummy. Mona Vale is a lovely suburb, full of quirky homewear and gift stores, as well as lovely cafes.

Sadly time was up all too quickly up there as had to race back for dinner that Heidi prepared for me, Jesse and Sam. Not only was the food beautiful, but the conversation great and the wine fully flowing. For the second night on the bounce, I drank too much but boy, does it numb the backache! Can't believe it's my last night here in Sydney - for starters, where am I going to watch the football to now and with who?!

One thing's for sure - the packing can wait until tomorrow, at least until my eyes are not at right angles from all the vino...

---