Saturday 21st May
BONDI BEACH
We have been taking advantage of visiting places during the week when the Oz kids are at school so it isn’t as busy, but decided that to visit Bondi Beach, it might add a good vibe if we went at the weekend when the locals were ‘hanging out!
The weather was nice so we took all the beach stuff and spent a couple of hours there. Rich and the kids went in the very cold sea, I sat on the beach!
The beach is big with lovely buttery coloured sand and quite large waves, although no bigger than I have seen before on other beaches round here. It did have a real relaxed, surf vibe though and is a real people watching, posing kind of place!
We then had a drive around the headland to Bronte Beach and Coogee. These were nice places and Bronte had a natural swimming pool, but it had turned cooler so we gave it a miss!
Sunday 21st May
Back into Sydney on the cheap family ferry fare today! We didn’t have the pleasure of dolphins accompanying us this time, but had some very nice coffee and carrot cake for our journey from Manly!
We headed straight for the opera house this time, hoping that we might be able to just go into the foyer area for a look instead of paying the extortionate amounts for a tour.
We couldn’t seem to find a way in though! It was nice just to wander around the outside and marvel at the architecture of it. It is pretty fantastic.
We then went for a wander through the Royal Botanical Gardens. Oliver saw some sulphur crested cockatoos surrounding some girls and wanted to take a closer look (at the feathered variety!) Soon, they were landing on his head, shoulders, arms etc! I got my camera out and next minute one had landed on my head – later when trying to get Daisy on my back for a piggy back, I found out that the wretched thing had poo’d down my back – and not just a little bit!
The girls left and gave us the remaining crackers they were feeding them with. When we were ready to leave, we gave the crackers to some smart, suited Chinese men who seemed fascinated by the cockatoos. Next minute they were taking photos of our kids again….what is it with these Chinese!
We walked to the headland called Mrs Macquaries point and then walked back to Darling Harbour which was a very long walk!
We caught the ferry back to Circular Quay as it was going dusk which took us under the bridge which was all lit up.
Monday 23rd May
Decided to drive up along the coast to look at the Northern Beaches. Started with Curl Curl but as there wasn’t a coast road as such we decided to drive up to the northern most beach Palm Beach. This is where celebrities and people with a lot of dosh have houses! It’s very pretty and has an estuary at one side and ocean at the other.
This is where they film Home and Away and the area is ‘Summer Bay’. When finding a car park, we saw a lot of large trailers. Richard and Oliver asked what they were filming and they said Home and Away. We didn’t go and have a look though because time was getting on and we wanted to walk up to the lighthouse. If we had have gone to have a look, maybe the next incident that occurred wouldn’t have done!!!!!
We walked along the lovely estuary beach to the little path called Smugglers Lane which leads up to the lighthouse. Richard and the girls were in front with Oliver and me behind. It was then that I spotted a snake.
Monty!!
For those of you who know me really well, I’m not a snake lover to say the least. I was creating and freaking out loads (well that’s what I was told), whilst Richard was trying to tell me its size was more like a worm! I was becoming slightly hysterical telling them it was poisonous and I just daren’t go past it. The rule of thumb with snakes is that you stand still and they will quietly slither past given that they are more scared of you! Well not this one. Richard tried to do a Steve Irwin and move it gently off the path, well it didn’t like that, it hissed and cavorted and snapped.
The kids were laughing at me a little bit and then Oliver decided he would run past (the path was less than 1m wide) as he ran, it snapped at his leg (although he wasn’t in danger as it didn’t get near his leg). Eventually Richard covered it in leaves and I then went past it absolutely terrified! At that point, 2 men were coming back down the lane and I heard one say to the other “this is about the place where the snake was” I said “Its still here, on the path” He told us it was a very poisonous snake and if it were to bite you, you would end up in hospital for quite a time! Because I was then nervous of seeing another, he told me he had seen about 5 of these snakes in his life and had been coming up and down this track since he was 5 years old! Since he looked about 55 I decided I might be ok to carry on… I still had to go back down though after the walk and insisted Richard give me a piggy back past it!
Anyway….back to the walk. We were heading towards Barrenjoey lighthouse which was a very pretty building and great views were to be had across the sea. This is a lookout for whales from May, but we didn’t see any today…
I managed to get back past the pile of leaves without looking if the snake was there and without a piggy back from Richard – progress!
When we got back we looked up ‘Brown Snake’ in our book and it turns out it is the 2nd most venomous snake in the world and most dangerous snake in Australia!! It goes on to say that more than half of them will retreat from people, and only 3% will move towards them rising up in ‘S’ shapes and striking repeatedly – trust ours to be in that 3%!!
After talking to people who live here since, they reckon we are really lucky to have seen one – well depends which way you look at it really!!!
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