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Published: August 8th 2007
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We arrived in Sydney on a gorgeous hot afternoon and were driven by Vicky, a friend of Sarah’s, to her house in Vaucluse where we were staying for our two weeks here. Our welcome reception included an all English a line up including Vicky’s husband Dave, their mate Jason and their two little King Charles Spaniels, Ruby and Mia.
As their idea of a welcome to Sydney a BBQ was suggested and after a trip to the local shop to stock up on an EC mountain of meat we began cooking. After eating what must have been an entire cow each someone had the ultimate suggestion of a great way to let dinner go down; a trip to Lunar Park. I couldn’t think off a better way to digest the hugest meal I’d eaten in decades than hitting the white knuckle rides of Lunar Park but everyone was determined and so we piled into one taxi and arrived a little later to my first glimpse of Sydney Harbour Bridge at night and The Rocks..
The famous face of Luna Park was certainly a sight to behold; it’s menacing teeth grinning out at us in the dark of the
night.
Inside we attacked the helter skelter slides with gusto, elbowing out the little kids in our way. Luna Park is wicked as it also had the really old fashioned rides that used to be around when I was little.
Once we finished at Lunar Park we took the ferry across to Circular Quay where we ended our first night in Sydney with a beer in the Opera bar outside the Opera house. Beautiful. Sydney is really special at night
The next day our excellent hosts drove us to Darling Harbour for lunch where we walked around the cafes, bars and shops. It was a beautiful day. As I sat in a bar holding a cold scooner of Beer watching life go by when it suddenly dawned on me where I was, in Darling harbour, Sydney, Australia; This was exactly the spot I’d seen on a holiday programme years ago when I decided I really wanted to come here- and that was a really nice feeling.
The second half of the day was even better as Vic and Dave drove us to Palm Beach where Home and Away is filmed. I was totally over excited and
took hundreds of photos including about a thousand of the surf club! I felt particularly smug to have enjoyed a coffee at the surf club café too. I am so cool!! Before we left we made a beautiful giant sandcastle, a real team effort and then headed back (see pics).
The next few days were spent exploring Sydney. During the next week we were joined at Vicky and Dave's house by a friend of Vicky’s from uni (Nigel) and his sister (Teresa), it was like being in a hostel the amount of people that were now hanging out at the house. Nigel and Teresa turned out to be great and the three of us decided it was about time to see what the fuss was about Bondi Beach.
On first impressions I have to say I liked it. The actual beach was packed but in a friendly way and the shops and cafes around it added to a great atmosphere. The only serious danger I feel I should mention here are the evil Seagulls; they work in packs, menacing innocent people eating fish a chips- it was honestly like being in Hitchcock’s and Birds, I was expecting to
have my eye pecked out at any second.
Never-the-less, having found a spot on the sand on the beach, Teresa and I left Nigel to guard the bags as we hit the waves (well had a paddle). The guys on the beach were generally easy on the eye except the odd white hairy English man or middle-aged European labouring under the misconception that it's acceptable to ware Speedos.
Teresa decided to brave a swim but being a poor swimmer I didn’t fancy the humiliation of being dragged from the water by a hunky life guard and given the kiss of life (hang on a minute, think I missed a trick there!!) Any way I left Teresa to a swim and made my way back up the beach; here I got totally disorientated and couldn’t see for love nor money where wehad been sitting. After five minutes of looking like a total spanner trying to find Nigel and our stuff, I was very relieved to see him- even tho he was waving his arms and looking at me with pity!
* note to those who are new to Bondi: Bondi beach is relatively big and most bags/towels look the
same, make sure you leave a trail of bread crumbs behind you so you can find your way back without looking like a twat like me.
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