Weekend in Sydney

After a relaxing few days driving the coast, we were excited to see what Sydney (aka Australia's 'big smoke') had to offer. Upon our arrival, we decided to head over to one of Australia's most iconic beaches: Bondi Beach. There is a popular walking pathway that connects Bondi with another nearby beach called Coogee Beach, and we decided that this two hour walk would be a good starting point. We met up at Bondi with an old friend of Emma's, who now lives in Sydney and was able to give us some local perspective along the walk.

The walk was stunning, filled with crashing waves and craggy cliffs. We certainly wouldn't have wanted to be surfing at Bondi that afternoon!

Emma's favourite thing about the walk was the rock pools nestled into each of the bays that we passed. She could have spent all day watching swimmers do laps in the calm salt water while the waves churned against the rocks.

The Bondi-Coogee walk is also home to the most scenic cemetery in the world. The Waverley cemetery sits on some of Australia's primest real estate, although we're not sure that the inhabitants appreciate their beautiful view much.

Upon completion of the walk, we celebrated with burgers and beer at the Coogee Pavilion (a very upmarket beach concession stand) and then caught the bus back into town to meet up with another of Emma's friends, who she knows from her elementary school days in New Zealand. We had a long dinner with Laura and her husband Phil (who is actually from Toronto), and marvelled over Laura's incredible memory (she still remembers which boys she and Emma had crushes on at age 10).

We were up early on Saturday morning for some more tourist activities. We checked out the Opera House, as you do in Sydney.

We also couldn't miss the famous Harbour Bridge.

Circular Quay, the major ferry terminal and a popular place for eating and drinking.

Inspired by our Bondi-Coogee walk the previous day, we walked over the Harbour Bridge to the North Shore and then (after a short bus ride) hiked along a coastal walkway to Manly beach.

The view of the Opera House from the Harbour Bridge.

The Manly beach walk was another beautiful one. The water was surprisingly clear, and we were able to look longingly into the backyards of people's beachside mansions and pretend that that they were our beachside mansion. We also found some rock pools to look longingly at.

The costal walk finished at Manly Beach, where we met up with some of Emma's Australian frisbee friends at the Four Pines Brewery. We'd planned to meet them for a quick late lunch before catching a ferry back downtown. Seven hours later, we finally departed from the brewery...clearly a great time was had by all!

We had a bit of a sleep in the next morning. When we finally dragged ourselves up, we decided to make the most of a slightly dreary day, and visit Cockatoo Island. This former prison is Australia's answer to Alcatraz and had been recommended to us by some friends in New Zealand.

This place was very creepy, a feature that wasn't helped by the overcast sky.

The first thing that we noticed was the multiple signs warning of aggressive seagulls.

The dilapidated buildings didn't look like they's provide much shelter if the seagulls were to attack (we weren't sure where the cockatoos were, but we think it's most likely that the killer seagulls drove them off the island).

We saw a catwalk leading out to what seemed to be a nice view of the bridge. We tried to traverse the catwalk, but the seagulls started swooping on us and we had to abort the mission and run back the way we'd come with our jackets pulled over our heads.

We tired of exploring Cockatoo Island quite quickly, unable to get the thought of an impending seagull attack out of our minds. The ferries don't come to Cockatoo much (why ever not?), so we ended up having to wait for a while before we were able to depart. Emma thought that maybe she'd be able to float back to Sydney central with her umbrella. It was worth a try.

The ferry did eventually arrive, and we made it back to the city centre. There we turned around and headed out on yet another boat, this time for a dinner harbour cruise (a lovely gift from Emma's friend Caroline). This was great fun, and to our delight, did not involve birds.

The cruise was a great way to finish off our weekend in Sydney. The following day, we made the 11 hour drive down the coast to Lakes Entrance, which sits right around the bottom right corner of the Australian mainland.