Episode 3 – Sydney
We stayed in Sydney for 6 nights – one on a campsite, when we first arrived and we then imposed ourselves on Ann and Murph for the following 5 nights. Ann and Murph are friends of ours from London – who moved back out to Sydney at the start of the year and as I recall revealed their intention to depart London at the same time as us last year.
Ann and Murph have a flat in Manly, one of Sydney’s northern beaches – it’s a great part of Sydney – whilst you can drive to it from the centre of town, it is just as quick to jump on the ferry. The added benefit is that from the ferry you get to see the whole of Sydney harbour/bay including the iconic harbour bridge and opera house.
We followed a pretty standard tourist route in and around Sydney – but rather than this being boring and over-hyped, because Sydney is so cool, it was cool. We did the beaches at Manly and Bondi (including drinks at the famous Icebergs bar – watching the winter swimming club members swim in the sea water pool, which has waves crashing in to it every few minutes). We went to Toranga Zoo – saw all the indigenous animals – emu, platypus, kangaroo, koala and a few more besides. We walked around central Sydney – saw all the sights (as previously mentioned and the Botanic gardens, Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, the maritime museum). We had lunch in Wastons Bay (5km from the CBD) – in a renowned fish and chip shop, with the most glorious view of Sydney, sun sparkling on the bay, hundreds of boats bobbing away and a couple of cold beers. We also kayaked around the bays near Manly (with Ann), drove out to see the surfers in Freshwater Bay (with Ann), had a BBQ (with Ann) , went out with Ann’s friends (with Ann) for dinner – you can see how gracious a host she was. Thank you xx.
On top of the usual touristy things there were two stand-out activities we did – a tour of Sydney fish market and watched a Waratahs rugby game.
Considering my aversion to most things fishy – it seems strange that a fish market would be given such a big intro – however it was so interesting it really deserves it. Nicola was the driving force behind the idea to go and then one of Murph’s friends works there, so we managed to bum the whole thing for free. We had to be up at 6am and drove in to Sydney for 7am – we were escorted around the cooking school, explained the buying process (a dutch auction), told about the product and then taken on to the market floor to get in the way of the traders and porters. There were huge swordfish, chunks of giant tuna, lots of by-catch (less well known fish that can also be eaten) and also a live section – where the crabs and lobsters are bid for. And the best thing? It did not smell fishy at all.
The second highlight was the Waratahs game. The Waratahs are New South Wales, Sydney based rugby union team. We met up with a couple of Nicola’s friends – also recently departed from London – Katy and Scott – for a few beers in the afternoon and then slowly edged our way to the stadium. The game was okay, a loss for the Waratahs, but its just great fun to watch live sport, drinking beers with friends.
And all too quickly it was time to leave Sydney. Nicola and I both agreed Sydney is a great place to live – they do have the best of so many worlds – weather, food, sports, life-style etc – but it is just so far away from home – that’s all we can fault it on!
