The mist has lifted but not the cloud (or the cool!). Visibility is only a kilometre or so. We wander up the hill looking in the bookshops and tucking into a (far too) large breakfast in yet another cafe manned by a muscular mincer. Katoomba must be to Sydney as Brighton is to London. We drove down to Echo Point home to the famous Giant Staircase (900 odd steps) and a large amount of roadworks. All around the area street parking is by ticket. A pretty unfriendly welcome. That does it then, we'll come back to the Blue Mountains another day, we're off to sightsee in Sydney.
Sydney is overcast but muggy and we head over the bridge to Manly which seems like a busy seaside suburb (like a seaside town but with cafes instead of chippies). Surprisingly, for a Thursday, the place is packed and the beach full so we stroll along the prom. That's a hot and sweaty mistake so an ice cream is called for. We skip out of the car park just in time to avoid paying and go just round the headland to one of the dozens of Sydney Harbour National Parks (sometimes the sign announcing these and other reserves are bigger than the reserve itself but it's a good principle). There we get a great view of The Heads(?), the opening to the Tasman leading to a very picturesque network of bays and beaches.
There's plenty of time before Mark is due home so we do a beach crawl from Vaucluse at the tip of the South Head to Maroumbra. There are some great little beaches nestling in against the city 'burbs. Bondi, the most famous beach, is probably the most developed but it's still kind of funny looking. The promenade of hotels, cafes and shops is beyond a six lane road, beyond two car parks, beyond a wide promenade and is itself a good fifty yards across. It's a long way for an ice cream though I guess the spirited beacher is here to be extremely fit and an ice cream isn't on the agenda. There's one group of, we guessed, teenage life guard wanabees who were being ordered into the surf at short intervals. Plenty of surfers, though generally not doing very much in the three or four foot waves and a few joggers. I think the lack of sunshine had kepy many people at bay. The other beaches had amenities closer but either weren't as big or didn't catch the swell like Bondi, even on this quiet day.
At Mark's we're the only guests (at least tonight) and so get the spare room. Mark and Cronan have joined WeightWatchers and so we're treated to one of the secret recipies washed down with some of our super-heated-in-the-boot wines.
Chez Mark, Sydney S33.90526 E151.26016 Elev. 72m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.