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Sarah: On Saturday we headed out on a bus towards Coogee Beach on another gloriously cloudless day in Sydney. From Coogee Beach we walked North along the coastal path up to Bondi. Coogee was our first sight of an Aussie beach and we were suitably impressed! Golden sand, brilliant blue sea, beautiful surrounding scenery and lots of surfers looking like little seals out at sea waiting for the perfect wave. As we wandered along the coastal path lots of other little beaches and coves appeared around each corner, some with little man-made sea water swimming pools that protected from the surf (although the water was freezing and after the warm waters of Costa Rica I wasn't going anywhere near it without a wetsuit, apart from a little paddle!). Each little cove was as beautiful as the last, each popular with a different crowd, be it surfers, snorkellers, families, swimmers etc. Around the middle of the walk there was a cemetery covering the cliff that would be a really beautiful place to rest in peace, looking out to sea.
After a couple of hours along the coast we rounded the last corner to Bondi Beach which is a lot bigger than
all of the little beaches we passed on the way and wouldn't be out of place as an English seaside resort, apart from temperature! We still had a short while before meeting one of Nick's old friends so we wandered along the prom to get ourselves an ice cream - we were beside the seaside after all...
We met with Emma, husband Dan and their kids in a bar and put the world to rights over a few pitchers of beer. Nick hadn't seen Emma since she handed him the keys of her Peugeot 205 in a stunning Aztec gold
12/13 years ago (the first car that Nick owned) before she moved over to Oz. I can see why she did as it really is an amazing place that I love very, very much...but it is a VERY long way from home and our much loved friends and family. After Emma and Dan left, we stayed for a pitcher (or two?) more of beer before bussing it back to our hostel. Leftover homemade curry was the very welcome order of the day and after discovering that you can't buy booze from a shop after
10pm we headed out to
the bar a few doors down which was the local 'Oz' Spurs supporters bar to watch the football (less said about that the better). The local 'Oz' Spurs supporters were not much different to the typical 'old man in the pub' at home and even offered us mini pies and sausage rolls at half time (which was around 1am local time)! It was a late night after a long day full of fun in the sun!
Despite the late night, we were up early-ish and getting ready to walk from Manly Spit to Manly beach, another 'coastal' walk of about six miles within the massive Sydney Harbour. We got the bus to the spit bridge to start our walk; the bridge lifted to let some boats through just as we arrived. The excitement of seeing a bridge lifting is one of those things that doesn't seem to lessen with age! After waiting for the boats to pass through we were on our way but before too long were stopping to get our smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber sarnies down our necks to pick us up. We had heavy legs after the previous day's walk and evening's excitement. The
walk was very picturesque, going by small harbours, posh houses, parkland and forested areas. A big spider who had made his web across the path was spotted and duly avoided! There was also lots of birdlife, including a rainbow lorikeet (as pretty as it sounds) that was munching on some seeds in a nearby tree. When we arrived in Manly we headed for the beach. The town/beach itself was very busy, probably not helped by being a Sunday and using your travel card in Sydney on a Sunday, including ferry trips, is a maximum of about £1.25! Therefore, a quick coffee and look at the beach was the only attention that we afforded Manly before getting on the 25 minute ferry back to Circular Quay. The ferry was a really good way to see the harbour from another angle and we got ourselves a seat facing the Opera House as the boat pulled in.
We were pretty bushed by the time we got back to the hostel and had planned to hit Chinatown again for a cheap and easy dinner. We sat down in a Chinese restaurant but after a quick look at the menu we abandoned it for
the Thai restaurant that we had eaten at a couple of nights before. There are a lot of amazing looking restaurants in Sydney, but, if it ain't broke, don't try and fix it and we knew we were guaranteed a good feed. We were not disappointed, I've been requested to do justice to Nick's favourite meal so far, so I will try my best! Here goes...We shared some dim sum for starter that were garnished with red caviar. The other starter was a portion each of 'Love'. The menu was a bit vague about what 'Love' actually was, but it looked like a stuffed squid with seaweed, possibly some oriental mushrooms and covered with a mildly spicy thousand island sauce - it was mega yummy. We shared two mains of a spicy fried pork belly with green beans and a thai soup. The pork belly was nicely fried and fatty with whole chillies for a good kick. The soup had all sorts of flavours, with the softest scallops, crispy pork, beansprouts, smoky flavour, spicy flavour - basically all the flavours that all came together to an amazing party in your mouth. [
Nick: Okay, I think that just about does it
justice! It was amaaaazing!]. Well-fed, it was back to the hostel and to bed. We were due to pick the car up the next morning so it was farewell Sydney. Hopefully we'll be back soon and if, dear reader, you haven't been, this city comes with the Sarah guarantee that you definitely will love it!
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