Sydney Day 2

Thursday morning I met someone for breakfast who I used to work for in the 90s, we had a great chat and lots of laughs, the tensions and stresses of working in a fashionable eatery long behind us, it was nice just to talk and be friends. It was the most awesome sunny day and after I took myself down to Bronte for a swim, the water, a little cold @16c was none the less spectacular.

Had arranged to meet some folk I'd met through a mutual friend here in New York for dinner so I went back to my hotel room early evening and caught up on a bit of Aussie telly, it was all politics with the federal election looming. For dinner we went to a simple Thai place in the Cross and after I got meself an early night!

Travels, day one

Well I've been to Australia and back, even with the best intentions I didn't do any blogging, so I shall commence now, I have an archive of photos and text messages to sift through and also there is the human memory, to begin......

Monday 18 August, left New York in the evening, crossing the date line and arriving in Sydney on Wednesday morning, there is the Royal National Park in view just before landing at Sydney, I always think it must of been what Sydney's coastline must of looked like before Anglo settlement

Beaches Marley on the left, Little Marley on the right, have walked and swum there many times

Wattamolla,

Wattamolla on the left, Little Marley and Marley on the right, further right you would come to Sydney

Golly landing in Sydney was just amazing, it was a crisp, clear winter's day, quite typical, something around 20c (70f), that 14 hr from LA is just a killer on top of the 5 hr from NYC, though I did manage to stumble into a hire car and make it to my Kings Cross hotel, it all felt a little surreal, I did manage to keep to the left while driving. Southern Cross Drive never looked so good.

I tried to sleep but could not, I needed to get an internet connection and also a mobile phone so I went to the Telstra shop in Bondi Junction and did just that, after I went to meet my parents who were in Sydney on their way home to Melbourne from their annual grey nomad trek to the sunshine in Queensland, I met them in the Botanic Gardens, we had a walk and then a cuppa tea in the NSW art gallery and then made our way via the Harbour Tunnel to the Lane Cove National Park where they had their van parked, and then on to the Lane Cove RSL where we all had fried whiting and chips for tea, as it was only 6:00pm, to early for dinner, a great first day of a week in Sydney.