Friday night was low-key for us because we were getting up early the next morning so we just had dinner at a Thai place on Crown St (which is the main restaurant/bar street through our neighborhood). I branched out and tried something new and was punished for being adventurous…it wasn’t nearly as good as my usual Thai dishes. Lesson being of course don’t ever deviate from your norm. I won’t ever make that mistake again.
Saturday we went to the local Hertz and rented a little Toyota Yaris (?) which was a teeny little two door car. My experience driving on the left hand side of the road in South Africa earlier in the year turned out to pay dividends because it was way easier this time. While making turns Michelle had to constantly remind me to STAY LEFT but it wasn’t the panicked situation we had driving in Cape Town when I would be in the middle of making a turn and kind of freeze because I was so confused about which side of the road I should be on. (plus in Sydney you don’t feel like you’re going to get carjacked at every turn and you don’t feel like every other driver has a gun in the car that they could pull out and use on you at any moment…but I digress). Renting cars here is really cheap (relatively) which is an exciting discovery because now it feels like we can go anywhere without real limitations. So we drive up north over the Harbour Bridge and drove up along the coast to Palm Beach which is considered, I think, the northernmost beach of the Sydney area (it was probably an hour north or so). The beaches north of Palm Beach are part of the “Central Coast” which I believe is the central coast of NSW. Anyways, we walked out to the Barrenjoey head and up to a lighthouse. The land leading out to the head is very narrow, probably a few hundred feet wide so you look back and see the narrow strip of land with the ocean and the breakers on one side and the sheltered harbour on the other. And the land to the west is part of a national park, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, which is lush forest and a pretty background. And that was our next destination so we drove back down south to where we could cut over and get to the park which is on the “West Head.” The park was great and we took a few little walks on the “tracks” (they don’t call them trails) to some viewpoints. After exploring the park a bit we started heading back to the city to return the car…quite a fun trip out of the city for the day, and so easy to do! The hardest part of driving was trying to get back to the rental car place which involved making a right turn off of Oxford Street which turns out is an impossible thing to do. Eventually we got the car back without problem.
Saturday we went to the local Hertz and rented a little Toyota Yaris (?) which was a teeny little two door car. My experience driving on the left hand side of the road in South Africa earlier in the year turned out to pay dividends because it was way easier this time. While making turns Michelle had to constantly remind me to STAY LEFT but it wasn’t the panicked situation we had driving in Cape Town when I would be in the middle of making a turn and kind of freeze because I was so confused about which side of the road I should be on. (plus in Sydney you don’t feel like you’re going to get carjacked at every turn and you don’t feel like every other driver has a gun in the car that they could pull out and use on you at any moment…but I digress). Renting cars here is really cheap (relatively) which is an exciting discovery because now it feels like we can go anywhere without real limitations. So we drive up north over the Harbour Bridge and drove up along the coast to Palm Beach which is considered, I think, the northernmost beach of the Sydney area (it was probably an hour north or so). The beaches north of Palm Beach are part of the “Central Coast” which I believe is the central coast of NSW. Anyways, we walked out to the Barrenjoey head and up to a lighthouse. The land leading out to the head is very narrow, probably a few hundred feet wide so you look back and see the narrow strip of land with the ocean and the breakers on one side and the sheltered harbour on the other. And the land to the west is part of a national park, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, which is lush forest and a pretty background. And that was our next destination so we drove back down south to where we could cut over and get to the park which is on the “West Head.” The park was great and we took a few little walks on the “tracks” (they don’t call them trails) to some viewpoints. After exploring the park a bit we started heading back to the city to return the car…quite a fun trip out of the city for the day, and so easy to do! The hardest part of driving was trying to get back to the rental car place which involved making a right turn off of Oxford Street which turns out is an impossible thing to do. Eventually we got the car back without problem.
Then later that night we went to see our second Aussie Rules Football game…the Swans (Sydney) were playing the Lions from somewhere, we actually don’t know…probably somewhere in Victoria or something. This game was played at the Sydney Cricket Ground which is in Centennial Park which is about a 15 minute walk from our apartment (as opposed to the first game at Olympic Park which is almost an hour train ride). SCG is a smaller stadium and I think much better really, the crowd seemed more into it and it just had a better vibe in general. The Swans won easily and I think the win puts them into the playoffs or something? We understand the basics of the game pretty well now but whenever the referees call penalties we have no idea what’s going on. Still need to try to read more about it. The basics are simple though: knock the living daylights out of the other team and while doing that try to kick the ball through the goalposts. Easy.
Sunday Michelle made me do yoga which I found extremely challenging and then we did our Sunday training run for the Bridge Run coming up. Then we had pancakes at home which were fantastic. Leah came over and we went to the Australia Museum where they were having a special exhibit on Aboriginal artwork which was pretty cool. The rest of the museum was about all the animals in Australia that can kill you. There are a lot. Pretty much pick a type of animal and the most poisonous of that animal lives in Australia. In the afternoon we had a few other friends come over to our apartment and we BBQed. It was rainy and not the warmest day but I just love BBQing…it was yet another experience that makes me really excited for winter to be over! We had a tamer BBQ menu this time rather than our kangaroo from last week…just teriyaki chicken and some grilled veggies. Maybe next week we’ll throw some shrimp on the Barbie!!
As always, a link to more of the pictures from the weekend’s events:
As always, a link to more of the pictures from the weekend’s events:
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