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Coogee beach
Off the plane, onto a bus and straight to this beach. Very nice. DAY 1:
It all started early (a bit too early) on a Friday morning. The 4th May to be precise...I had to crawl out of bed at 5am to get to the airport from the 7am flight to Sydney. I managed to catch up on some sleep by sleeping in the taxi to the airport and of course throughout the 4 and a half hour flight to Sydney. The plane arrived on time and having no check-in luggage I strolled right out of the airport into a brilliant sunshine and bright blue skies above. It was already looking like a very good weekend ahead.
I decided that since Australian dollars are worth next to nothing compared to the pound (well, OK, not quite but the exchange rate is severely in my favour at 2.4 Aus dollars to the pound), there was no harm in splashing out on a taxi. Apparently, Wilson Street in Newtown, where my friend Katherine was waiting for me in her house was not that far away. It took us just 20 minutes to get there and I hopped out all excited to see where exactly Katherine had been living these past four years since
Baths
Baths. I think they mean in the sea? she moved to Oz from the UK.
And what a lovely street it was, in fact not just Wilson street but the whole of Newtown is utterly charming. There are enough restaurants here to eat at a different one for a whle year and you still might not cover them all. Add a more than generous sprinkling of bars and pub-type places and the icing on the cake - gelaterias! and what more can one want from the neighbourhood one lives in?? The ice cream was seriously good. But I digress, it was great to catch up with Kat, who then had to skip back to work having very kindly stayed home to wait for my arrival. She first took me to lunch though, at the lovely Bank Hotel. It had just been done up and was very swish. The food was pretty good too, I had this shrimp and peanut salad combo which was a whole bunch of flavours I hadn't really had mixed together before! Fun.
Then Kat's recommendation for a slightly weary traveller was a bus ride to Coogee beach. And so it was that I found myself in the beautiful place depicted in the
Benches by the sea
A great view from these seats photos. It was just so nice to be there I can't describe it, apart from to say that I did not tire of staring at the bright blue sea as I wondered around the beach for the best part of the next two hours. Oh yes, this was going to be a good weekend. It was sunny but not too hot, with a light breeze. I amused myself people watching and was please to note plenty of sporting activity which fitted perfectly with my stereotype view of the typical Australian.
By the time I got back from Coogee, it was time to get ready to go to capoeira. I had figured out that since there was no capoeira training in Fiji, a visit to Sydney would likely be my only chance in months to satisfy my slight obsession with this sport. I even brouht my abada with me. I have been suffering severe withdrawal syptoms ever since I got to Fiji and so I e-mailed a capoeira group in Sydney in advance of my visit and they said it was no problem for me to drop into on of their classes. So I did. And it was great fun.
View of the beach
Another view of the beach...it's not bad, is it? And very very painful. I thought it was a beginners class and so would be relatively gentle, but not so and although I loved every minute, I knew I was going to pay for it the next few days. But that was tomorrow and this was now and I was feeling very plesaed with myself as I arived back at Kat's flat.
We went out to a little Mexican restaurant and I ate a burrito with guacamole and chips and all was well with the world. The day was polished off fittingly by watching 2 episodes of series 6 of the West Wing, one of my favourite ever TV shows. It may not have been an entirely Australian cultural finish to the day but I didn't care, I was in heaven.
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Manoula
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Wish....
I could be there too!! Life is definitely a beach.