I woke up a lot earlier than Dave this morning due to the time change I believe, but I actually did get a full 8 hours so all was good. We hung around for a bit and then Dave said he was going to make me some lunch of garlic and soy sauce marinated kangaroo and rice. It was SO good. I can not stress that enough. Kangaroo is really really good, and good for you too! Who knew?! I need to get a rice cooker, its just so much easier I’m amazed. It was raining a bit but there is so much to do that making today a beach day seemed like a good idea. We got ready and then walked to King street to catch the bus to Coogee. First, however, we stopped at a convenience store, Spar, to get travel 10 tickets, which are a significant savings over just buying each ride separately. We were still early, and the stop is in front of Gloria Jeans, so I was going to get a coffee but as soon as we walked in, the bus pulled up and we had to bolt. The pass system is similar to London…I guess. You put your ticket in, it does something, and then it pops back out. In this case, it prints something on the back. We sat down, I went to put my feet up on the seat opposite, and Dave said ‘no, no, the fine you for that!’ Whoa. Sure enough, there was a little sign on the window next to us showing someone with their feet up and a giant line through it. I got my camera…No Memory Card. NO!!!! There it was, in my mind, sticking out of Dave’s laptop on his desk. Damn! I never forget stuff, especially stuff like this, so I was mad at myself and concerned that I wouldn’t get any pics of this beautiful day that we were going to have. 🙁 The ride was mostly through neighborhoods, not very urban looking, and took maybe 45 minutes? Tough to say, I don;t have a watch and even my no-service cell phone refuses to display time in any time zone. Finally, as the last people on the bus, we arrived at Coogee.
There were a few stores in the immediate area so we checked those out and were directed about 1 block away to an actual camera store. I figured I was going to get absolutely screwed on this one – buying a memory card at a camera shop right on the beach? Yea, right, I was surely going to pay for my mistake. But, there hanging on the wall was a 1GB card for $15. Umm, that’s actually a good deal! There was nothing smaller, so I got that and we were off. The sand at Coogee is nice and wow has it been a long winter. We walked along the beach towards a cliff that had a path on it. I was more of a hill actually, as it was covered with grass, but walking to the top yielded spectacular views of the beach. The water is more blue than the Caribbean and the beach has absolutely no one on it. We took some photos and moved on. I’m not entirely sure of where one beach area really ends and the other begins, and Dave’s in the shower now, but we saw Coogee, Bronte, Tamarama, and Bondi. All shared the same beautiful sand and bluer than blue water. The paths between the beaches, however, were perhaps more interesting. The rocks are all eroded but they are eroded in the strangest way possible. The best way to describe it is that it looks like a steel raindrop has landed on the rock and made a circular indentation anywhere from 6 to 10 inches deep and left the rest of the surface untouched. There are many of these such ‘holes’, some more circular than others, some even forming what looks like footprints of a t-rex in their orientation. The coastline is very hilly so we were going up to pass from beach to beach and then down to the next beach. At one point we crossed over the fence barrier and stood on a rock that jutted out over the water about 100 feet below us, just watching the waves. The weather was beautiful until we literally saw a line of rain approaching over the water. We could see it in closer and closer until it finally hit us just as we were passing to Bronte beach along an extremely old cemetery. It was appropriate for us to hit us there, I guess, but it was also interesting to look at the old graves; the graves were more boxes above the ground and some had collapsed into themselves so that was a bit creepy. There were headstones with sculptures on top, mainly crosses, but some angels, some with the head missing – eek! The walkway next to the cemetery went up and down along the cliff’s edge until it stopped and we arrived at Bronte beach. It was still raining at this point, but we spotted some caves along the water across the beach. We hurried into them and sat, just watching the rain on the water and the numerous surfers who were unaffected by the storm. It was really beautiful just sitting there under the overhang of one of those interesting rocks watching the rain. Finally it stopped, and we were free to continue along our walk. We walked across another beach (Tamarama) and then to the most interesting part of the walk – the caves between Tamarama and Bondi. There really is no equivalent type of formation that I can think of in the US. We basically walked down to the shore line where there was a sea wall-type thing only it was very rocky and difficult to navigate at times. But – it was one of the coolest things ever. We reached what I guess can be described as a natural stopping point and we just looked out at the beach and the ocean, and the rocks and sat for a little while. Australia is just a bizarre place!
After walking back over the rocks we walked next to Bondi beach and then went to McDonalds because we were both absolutely starving. I got an ice cream cone and Dave got a hamburger and we shared a water. Ice cream cones are by far the cheapest thing at McDonalds at 30c. Even a drink is over $2. And their mediums are the size of our smalls. We were going to be eating soon, but it just had to be done. From there we found out which bus to take and then headed back into the city. I fell asleep a little on the bus, but before I knew it we were back in Sydney and were heading towards the Landsdown for chicken schnitzel. The walk wasn’t far and it wasn’t quite dark yet. Actually, it was the perfect time to see all the bats leaving the botanic gardens! How weird is it that bats just fly around the city like that?! it was a little disturbing but people seemed ok with it, and people just moved about the city as if there weren’t hundreds of bats above their heads. Weird. So Dave has really been hyping this chicken schnitzel with mushroom sauce. I don’t really like mushrooms but there arent’ a lot of actual mushrooms and its more the flavour, which is ok. So of course that is what I ordered along with a local beer that they said was light. The food came out pretty quickly and he was right, it really was good! Very filling though, with the sauce on the french fries which was just awesome. After eating as much as we could, which wasn’t the entire plate ful as we had gone to McDonalds not too long before, it was time to walk back to campus to make 7:30 trivia at the Well.
Although it wasn’t supposed to start until 7:30, it was close to 7 when we walked by and the score board was already set up and it looked like things were going to start soon. So, we went inside, met Ilya, and got drinks. The other members of our team were me, Dave, Ilya, Devin, Ignatious, Travis, and Laasya at the end. We were going through the questions ok, but we really thought we were getting a lot more right than we actually were. I think if might have had to do with the fact that Ilya is 100% certain that he knows the answers to things, but then is way way off. Either way. we ended up coming in third along with another team so we had a 4 question face-off. We got 3/4 correct but somehow the other team got all 4?! I think they must have been cheating. So, alas, we did not win. Oh well. People left but dave and I stayed and got another drink before heading back. Long day, lots of walking, sleep was pretty early.
