First things first, I must mention how much I had missed my friend Lucy Conybear; I used to know her before she was married and had been whisked off to live in Sydney, and although we didn’t see each other all that often, we always had a great laugh. So we happily took her up on her and hubby Lee’s offer to put Mark and me up in their spare room. We spent the day wandering around downtown Sydney and seeing all the touristy places; Paddy’s Market, Chinatown, Darling Harbour, Sydney Harbour and The Opera House. The architecture in downtown reminded me of art deco buildings, and there was a bustle about the city, a mixture of tourists and locals, all in a hurry and all on their way somewhere very cool. After all, we were in Sydney. I was getting a little bit freaked out by now about hot Christmas. There were decorations and advertisements everywhere, and yet I still didn’t feel remotely Christmassy. It just felt wrong!
Later in the afternoon we headed to North Sydney to find the Conybears’ home. We went across Sydney Harbour Bridge on the train! This was very exciting. Lucy was there to welcome us in to their beautiful home. I had forgotten how bubbly, funny, friendly and generally fantastic she is, until we were made to feel completely at home within 5 minutes flat. Lucy had a prior engagement for Christmas drinks so we took a walk down to the waterfront and stood underneath Sydney Harbour Bridge, but this time looking across the harbour towards the Opera House. It was incredibly exciting to be standing under such an iconic structure. We followed this with probably the best fish and chips I have ever had, at a place up the road, and a couple of pints. Days don’t get much more perfect than that.
We tried to reason with Lucy and Bear (Lee’s nickname – because of his surname Conybear, not because he is big, brown, scary and furry) that the reason we didn’t get out of bed the next day until 1pm was because we were still on Singapore time. I think they bought it. They probably didn’t buy it. They probably just thought that we were irretrievably lazy. Anyway, once we got up we managed to head to Manly Beach on the ferry. Yes that’s right, Manly Beach. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed there or not, being more womanly than manly. Chortle. The ferry journey was beautiful, you pull out of Sydney Harbour, and you just look back at the scenery reflecting in the bay. And you watch all of the sailboats navigating their way around the hundreds of other sailboats and ferries. If you don’t like sailing it’s probably not the place for you.
I didn’t realise how large the suburb of Sydney was until this point. We were on the ferry for an hour, and all of the area up to Manly Beach is still part of Sydney. It’s a little peninsular which almost feels like an island, and it’s very small and very picturesque. It’s the kind of place I imagine I could retire too. But it’s also a very cool place to hang out on the beach. The freaky hot Christmas feeling continued as we walked up the main strip to the beach and saw a massive Christmas tree, followed by three lads walking along in speedos and Santa hats. It’s just not right! We sunned ourselves and swam around in the surf for a few hours, and it was most pleasant. We were lucky because this was the best day weather wise of our stay. We finished off with, yes you guessed it, a couple of pints, and burgers sitting on the harbour wall waiting for our return ferry. I think Lucy had prior engagements again that night (I decided not to take the hint that she just didn’t like us, and instead took her at her word), so we treated ourselves and Bear to some wine. I think. It’s a bit blurry, maybe we drank a bit too much.
Yet again we didn’t surface until late the next day, but it was OK, because Lucy was in a right old hung-over state, so we could take our time to get ready for going out with them both for the day. This was clearly going to be hair of the dog for Lucy and the sooner the better. We jumped a ferry to Sydney Harbour, and I was told we were going to The Rocks. Hmmm. I had thought that there may be something more exciting to do on a Sunday afternoon than geology. And thankfully I was correct. The Rocks is the original part of the Sydney settlement underneath a portion of the Harbour Bridge, and it’s been very well preserved. Imagine a small country town, low built, old fashioned buildings housing small boutiques, haberdashers, proper pubs, restaurants, basically like you’re back in the 1950s in the UK. It’s really beautiful, and it was like stepping back in time. There was a lovely market too selling all sorts of Australian wares and souvenirs.
We repaired to a nearby pub, and I was introduced for the first time to a chicken parmigiana for lunch. It’s basically a heart attack waiting to happen. It’s a piece of chicken pounded flat and used like the base of a pizza, covered in cheese and tomato sauce, and it’s bloody delicious. It’s also a great way to line the stomach for an afternoon of drinking, which we then proceeded to. There was live music at the bar by the Opera House, so we set ourselves up there for a few hours, then had a couple more by the ferry station, basically talked crap quite a lot, and had a great laugh, culminating in Bear trying to put us on the wrong ferry. But thankfully we found the right one. Back in North Sydney we had the most amazing Thai meal, at which I drank about three litres of water, partly because I had boozed myself out, and partly because I again managed to choose an innocuous looking salad, which was actually covered in chilli. However, once my mouth had stopped burning it was absolutely delicious. Then I think Mark and I tried to ply more wine on our hosts when we got home, forgetting (or rubbing in) that they had to work the next day and we did not, before we passed out. Again, days don’t get much better than that. By this time I liked Sydney a lot, and Lucy and Bear even more.
We had planned to go to the Blue Mountains the next day, but it was raining and we thought that the views would not be so good. So we sorted out some of our photos, went out for some lunch, and generally had a pretty chilled day. Then Lucy cooked us a fantastic seafood risotto for dinner. Yum. And then we were off to Melbourne the next day. Massive thanks goes to Lucy and Bear for their hospitality and so much fun. We hope we can return the favour one day when we’re living somewhere a bit more exotic than London that they would like to visit. We hopped on our flight to Melbourne to go and see some more family. I was also very keen to see for myself which is better: Sydney or Melbourne?
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