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Published: January 22nd 2011
19 January 2011 It seems that we have learnt, in two short days, how to arise early. Since it is warm, we are sleeping with the sliding doors in Adam & Anna’s lounge wide open and a gap in the curtains that bathes me in sunshine the moment that the sun comes up. That, combined with the continuous soundtrack provided obligingly by the ocean means that arising early has become a joy rather than a chore.
The plan for today was to head out to Palm Beach. This particular beach is not only beautiful, but also the location where most of the beach scenes for Home & Away are shot. Ok, I admit it, I am a closet Home and Away watcher (which is currently suspended for the summer break here so I haven’t seen one episode since we arrived in Australia - isn’t part of visiting Australia spoiling Neighbours & Home & Away plot lines for friends and family when you return home???) and I was keen to get a taste of Summer Bay. Since Gregg spent four months in Australia ten years ago, he has already seen most of the ‘must see’ sights and around
Sydney which means that he is making quite the tour guide for me - I say I want to visit ‘Summer Bay’ and he puts us on a bus to get there.
The ease of navigating public transport in Australia, compared to the places visited during our South-East Asian adventures, cannot be over exaggerated. I had forgotten the joy of being able to read AND understand a timetable, recognise a bus stop and be confident that the bus that you are riding on is going to deliver you to the correct destination.
Today’s trip required taking a bus from Manly to Warringah Mall (which I have heard about all over Asia -
“it’s the biggest mall I have ever seen, I’ll have to take you there when we get to Sydney” ) and then another which dropped us right at Palm Beach at the opposite end to ‘Summer Bay Surf Life Saving Club’. The journey through the Northern Beaches took us from the hustle and bustle of the city to quieter, slightly more rural, suburbs which have pretty spectacular backdrops. These are areas which slip over the boundary of ‘similar’ and sit firmly in the arena
of ‘familiar’. The best, although not particularly eloquent, way to describe it is that you feel like you are somewhere on the North Cornish coastline only the (accessible) beaches are all bigger and much closer together than we are used to.
For all the beauty, there was one faintly traumatic facet of this particular journey - the moment that the windscreen of the bus was assaulted by freefalling overhead electricity cable. We weren’t killed (obviously) nor did we feel an electric shock - but the windscreen did look somewhat worse for wear. As an almost aside - it took the bus driver a good 400 metres before he decided that it might be sensible for him to stop the bus and, even then, he didn’t seem overly keen to get off in order to check that the cable hadn’t hit anyone/thing else on its way down to earth.
Sort-of-emergency out of the way, we continued on our way towards Palm Beach and in to a sort of ‘mizzle’. Today was our day for fortuity however - the sun came out to play the moment that we stepped off the bus.
We wondered along Palm Beach towards the
surf club, snapping pictures along the way, and discussing which areas we recognised from the show. Surprisingly, we came across only one shop selling Home & Away related souvenirs (perhaps our surprise hails from the 250 souvenir shops we have become accustomed to avoiding at tourist destinations visited in South-East Asia) but the surf club bears a permanent looking Summer Bay sign as does the beach buggy.
I had read on the internet last night that beach scenes tend to be shot Monday to Wednesday between 10am and 2pm so we were faintly hoping to see some of the ‘stars’. We didn’t, but were lucky enough to see a large pod of dolphins (Gregg says they could have been porpoises) frolicking about in the surf, so we sat on the beach trying to successfully photograph them for a while before heading over a narrow isthmus of land to The Pittwater for some more inspiring views.
Then, we picked up a bus and headed back to Warringah Mall where we headed inside in search of some lunch, had a quick nosey in a few shops and then hopped back on the bus to Manly. Now, there are quite a
Ah, there it is
Recognise this anyone?few surf shops in Manly and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a touch of browsing - no spending - before heading back to Adam and Anna’s.
Adam and Anna will shortly be moving out of their flat and are therefore in the throes of looking for a new home. We were quite surprised to hear how the rental market works here - 15 minutes open house viewings followed by a fevered and, it seems, exhaustive application process within which you could be competing with numerous other would be tenants. Fiercely competitive rivals too, by the sound of things. Anna had been to see a place at lunchtime today which she liked, so she and Adam spent sometime filling in application forms during the evening following which they took us out to a great little Mexican for dinner.
20 January 2011 Today, we planned an early rise, a morning spent blogging and catching up on some much needed planning and administration - making a decision on how we intend to traverse New Zealand seeming quite key - followed by an afternoon trip to Bondi.
Early rise was accomplished with ease, Gregg set about putting
One of the walkways down to the beach
...we decided this probably isn't the one they use for filming tonight’s dinner (Jamie Oliver’s Souvlaki - you just can’t go wrong!) in to marinate, whilst I cracked on with blogging punctuated by Googling ‘Campervans New Zealand’ and by 10:30am we were off to a flying start - having more or less published two blogs and tidied up our belongings which we becoming an unruly addition to Adam and Anna’s lounge.
Next job was to book a campervan. Good grief, there are a lot of options out there. We had originally intended to try to cover New Zealand by relocating campervans - for which you can usually find free/vastly reduced deals however have given ourselves a reality check. Australia has not been the great adventure that we had hoped for due to the cost and, even though New Zealand will also be expensive, we have taken the view that we want to do it properly - it’s not like we are going to be on a world tour again this time next year after all.
Having left it late to book, we were not inundated with options, particularly as we were hoping to be able to find a hire that wouldn’t completely break the bank. Then, I happened upon
the website for a company called Escape and we were sold. They had a small van available, the van comes pretty well equipped and each one is covered in individually designed artwork. A proper early-midlife-crisis-mobile if ever I saw one. We were sold (and Gregg had become ‘fatigued’ with looking) so out came the credit card and we hit send to make the booking.
Now, we are both really rather excited about setting foot in New Zealand.
We arrive in Christchurch at 11:30pm, so the next job was to book a hostel for the night - this necessitated establishing whether it was more financially viable to stay near the hotel or near the campervan depot - it transpired that it was the latter so, hey presto, we now know where we will be resting our heads for nearly the next month - wonders will never cease. We then almost booked our first few nights in the Cook Islands but, at the last minute, I must have decided that that would amount to over-organisation and that part therefore remains unplanned to date.
By the time we had worked ourselves into a frenzy of organisation (and spent far too
It's The Surf Club
...but, perhaps, not as we know it. long surfing the convenience stores/cafes for lunch) it was about 2:30pm and decided that, given that we wanted, to visit some other beaches on the way too and from Bondi, that it was really too late to make that trip today - we’ll adjourn that until tomorrow.
This gave us a few hours of afternoon in which we enjoyed a dip in the sea at the Manly Beach and a cup of tea or two before Adam got home.
Jamie’s Souvlaki, Tzatziki and Greek Salad triumphed again, the four of us set the world to rights for the fourth night in a row and then it was time for bed.
An admin day may not be an exciting one to recount, but it is remarkably satisfying to retire at night with plans in place for the weeks to come. Gold star Mr & Mrs P.
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