Sydney - 28th Dec 2009 to 18th Jan 2010 - PART 1

As previously posted, we flew to Sydney on 28th Dec to stay with Nesta and she had generously invited us to stay with her and her family for 3 weeks, so we had a wonderful long time with loads of entertainment and excursions she had arranged for us. It was great to meet her husband Richard and their children Ruben and Natalie, who were all amazingly welcoming and hospitable to us. Richard and both children are all keen musicians, so we were frequently treated to spontaneous and accomplished live music in the house, usually guitar and voice. They live in Killarney Heights, about 15km drive from the city centre. Although still a suburb, their house borders directly onto and above a piece of national park next to the Middle Harbour waterway. We were therefore treated to a lovely view over the quite tropical vegetation and to eye-level displays by the White Cockatoos, Kookaburras, Lorikeets and others along with their raucous cries (the birds not the musicians).

Socialising on Nesta's balcony. L to R: Ruben, Tyson, Richard, John (neighbour). Parkland in background.

It was interesting for me to see Sydney again, having last been there in 1971, when the Opera House was still being finished and there were many less skyscrapers. Otherwise it was still recognisable, though the famous harbour bridge was even bigger than I remembered. We explored the city sights such as the huge fish market and the Chinese quarter.

Doing the tourist thing at "The Rocks".

 Ibis helping to tidy up at the fish market

Indian Mynah helping to tidy up at the Art Gallery

Fruit bats, also called Flying Foxes, in the botanical gardens. These have become so numerous (in the thousands) they are destroying the trees and the authorities are trying to find a non-destructive way to deter them.

Nesta and Richard took us to many of the beaches and coastal walks near Sydney. I was disappointed not see the huge surfing waves that coast is so famous for, but it did mean we could have a good swim at Bilgola beach and tried some body surfing. As well as all the beaches there are so many rivers and inlets around Sydney in addition to the main harbour that it provides wonderful water front locations for many of the residents to live near and of course a multitude of water based actvities. The waterways do make it quite complicated to get from one place to another, but there are ferry options as well and a very good suburban rail system that we used a lot.

We also had a chance to visit my friend Rich (Bonniface) who used to work at Roke Manor and usually joined the lunchtime walks there. He emmigrated a couple of years ago and now has a great house at Berowra, one of the furthest North suburbs, overlooking extensive forested park land. He is very settled there now and had some good recommendations for walks around Sydney and elsewhere.

View from Rich's house in Berowra

Nesta had organised two 3-day trips for us during our stay, one to the Blue Mountains to the West of Sydney and one a few hours down the coast South of Sydney.

BLUE MOUNTAINS:

On our trip to the Blue Mountians with N&R we stayed in a luxurious but very affordable holiday cottage at Blackheath. Very comfortable and nicely furnished, which was very welcome when we had been out all day. (No - it wasnt on a slope, I just didnt have a tripod).

We visited some popular lookouts, local sites and small towns.

I could imagine the early sttlers trying to find a way through and coming across this - 'Oh $#!£'

The highlight of the trip was a long walk in the "Grand Canyon" (it is very grand, though not on the scale of its USA namesake) as recommended by Rich. N&R had not done the walk before so it was very nice for all of us and took us right down into the gorge. We were walking beside the streams that have carved it all out, along rock ledges and paths and amongst the tree ferns and the amazingly balanced gum trees whose roots seemed to grow from solid rock anchoring them to impossible slopes.

It was all well marked with steps where needed but nicely done without concrete or ugly safety fittings. You could start to imagine how impossible it must have been for the first explorers to find their way through the Blue Mountains from Sydney to the pastures they sought in the West. Some of the tracks were built by convicts and are still there, albeit now much safer. These days the materials for track building are delivered to the gorge by helicopter, not an option available to the original builders.

Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos were much more common in that area and could be seen gliding over our house or shouting at each other in pairs in the trees. They are large birds, mostly black with a cry like a low pitched sea eagle, so can be mistaken for a bird of prey (by me).

 On our last day in the Blue Mountains we visited Mount Wilson. The weather had become quite cool and misty, so we did not get the views we hoped for, but it made our short forest walk very atmospheric.

Sydney visit to be continued in Part 2....