Sat 26 July: Whale spotting!

After a long lie and a lazy morning, I managed to persuade K that we could do boring things like shopping tomorrow and that we should take advantage of the sunshine to explore the area around our temporary home. We set off around 1pm and found our way down towards Bronte beach, where we spent a bit of time watching the dozens of surfers in the water trying to catch the waves. We walked along the coast a bit and by this time hunger was setting in, so we stopped at a beachside café and had a veggie burger with chilli sauce (me) and a chicken breast burger (K), washed down with amazing fresh orange juices (they’re properly fresh here, and delicious). There was beach volleyball going on just in front of us, but the players weren’t of the sexy, bronzed variety – mostly middle aged men with an alarming propensity for taking their tops off in an appetite-spoiling manner!

Then we continued our walk along the coast, along some cliff tops and with lots of power walkers, runners and families out for the day. As we rounded one corner, we saw a group of people staring out to sea and decided to see what they were looking at. It turned out to be a pod of humpback whales, larking around fairly close to shore (about 50 m down from our cliff). Absolutely beautiful! They looked like they were having fun entertaining the cliff top audience and they actually looked like they, too, were trying to catch the waves breaking!

We walked right along to Bondi beach, where there must have been over a hundred surfers in the water. Apart from them, the beach was fairly empty (it is winter here after all) and it was actually quite pleasant (instead of being packed with posing types!). The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent sampling some of the local wines and beers , watching the Aussies tank the Kiwis at rugby (we were both secretly supporting New Zealand), playing a bit of pool and amusing ourselves by observing the antics of various drunk backpackers!

Today was a lovely day – Sydney was looking gorgeous and it made us feel that we would really like to have at least a bit of time here, even if we end up in Melbourne longer-term.