Day 3 - Aussie 2011

After our intense first day, we decided to take it a little slower today. We had a little bit of a stressful morning trying to find different belongings and get out on our way but then went on to have an enjoyable time.

We found a grocery store nearby and bought food to last us a few meals. As with Europe, the food is expensive here, but we did pretty good with our choices. We took our food to the nearby park and ate our brunch on bench there. One of those ibis birds walked up to us – it’s almost like the local pigeon, though of course they have those too – and Nick threw it some bread and then another one came and another, haha! I think we ended up with five or six around us along with a few other birds and they would take the bread right out of your hand, which I got on video. It was really one of the best parts of our day, just relaxing in the park, eating our meal, and feeding the birds.

We were kind of wrestling with our different options and decided to take the bus down to a place called Coogee (coo-jee). There is a nice walk that starts there and goes all along the ocean up to the famous Bondi Beach (bon-dye). I expected it to be a little more like a dirt road with few travelers on it but it was paved with lots of people running or walking their dog or heading to the beaches along the way. It was quite a fun walk, actually, and understandably popular as it passes through a number of turquoise bays, sandy beaches, and very cool cliff formations. It was plenty long too, about an hour walk if you went straight through but, of course, we stopped a lot for pictures or to just sit on a bench or a rock and look out onto the ocean for a while. It was picture-perfect and the weather was great too.

We arrived at Bondi Beach around 3:30pm and I was surprised at how fine the sand was. I love a beach with fine sand! It was very crowded though – being a Saturday may have made it more so than usual – and the water was too cold for us spoiled Hawaiians. We took a few pictures and I decided to make a sand sculpture but I didn’t get too far with it. Something about the sand was kind of crumbly, like it didn’t bind together too well, so I gave up on my project and felt grateful to live in a sand-sculpture-worthy place like Hawaii.

We took a bus back to the city and walked to the Sydney Tower but decided we would come back another time to do it during the day as it was 7pm and dark already. I thought it might be nice to see Sydney all lit up but I would rather be able to see the cool harbor.

For dinner, we walked over to a placed called Harry de Wheels, some famous place Nick had read about where a few famous people had eaten like Elton John and Russell Crowe, I think. Anyway, I thought this was a nice sit-down restaurant but it was actually one of those cook-out-of-my-big-van places, haha! Well, that was a surprise! They sell these various pot pies. Nick got their signature “Tiger” pot pie with some nasty pea topping on it and I got a chicken and cheese one – sounded safe – which I actually thought was pretty good.

We walked back to the hostel with sore feet again and were happy to see we were not bumped out of room or anything. Still, we got ready for bed and were settled in and people kept knocking on the door looking for the other girls in the room who were not even there. It got really irritating and Nick sighed and said from the bunk above me, “I’m too old for this.” Haha, I had to laugh at the whole thing.

We saw this old man in Ireland at the one of the hostels there and he had this wooden leg sitting by his bed which was a little disconcerting. Nick said he was going to end up like that guy, going on trips carrying his wooden leg. “And it would be a long leg too,” he said, and I about died laughing. I told him he’d have to check it as over-sized baggage, that the airline attendants would say, “That can’t fit in the overhead compartments.” Nick said, “But it bends at the knee…” and I died laughing again. In fact, I’ve been dying laughing typing all this out. Good thing we can laugh about it, I guess.

It’s already time to move on now, though we will be back in Sydney for our last day in Australia. Tomorrow, we fly out to Adelaide and head to Kangaroo Island!

Pictures:

(these will be a little more in order)

The group of Sydney birds gather for food.

 

Nick feeds one of the ibis birds.

Yeah, we passed under these guys on our walk from Coogee to Bondi Beach.  A little creepy.  There were about five of them on their scary webs above us.

A little cove as seen from our walk.  I loved the torquoise water.

You can see that there is a cemetary along the walk and it was very very big.  What you see on the hill there is only about 30% of it.

If Bondi Beach does not suit you, there is a pool overlooking it!  I thought that was interesting.

Here I am at Bondi Beach, looking toward that pool.

And here I am at Bondi Beach looking at all the people there!  I'm sure it's almost always busy because it is a famous beach.  There were a lot of people surfing there.

A view across the waters, with surfers in the waves.

I didn't think this was anything spectacular as a picture, but it's the only one we have with the two of us.

Here I am looking out over the ocean.  I really like the houses on the cliffs.

Nick is hanging out on the cool rock formations that are on the walk by Bondi Beach.

I found a set of rock plates jutting out by the walk and decided it was a pretty unique photo opp.

Then Nick wanted to get really funky with the angles.  He was kind of afraid the rock plate would collapse.  Uh, thanks, honey?

Nick looking over Bondi Beach.  He told me he was thinking about life (he didn't know I took the picture).

Harry de Wheels where we ate our little pot pie dinner.