Weather and wildlife

After leaving Sydney I headed south along the coast to a little place called Bendalong where friends have a holiday house/cottage that they very kindly let me take over for the next few days.  A couple of friends from Albury/Wodonga joined me here and we had a wonderful time.

The only downside to our week would definitely have been the weather - it rained for four days straight.  And I don't mean a little rain for a while every day - I mean it rained almost continually for four days and nights and as it can only be on an ocean coast, at times the rain was torrential!  We were very lucky where we were in that nothing was flooded out and the road (singular) into and out of Bendalong was driveable the whole time but there were many places along the New South Wales coast this week where serious flooding did occur.  And at the same time the east coast was flooding the west side of Australia was, and is, continuing to fight devastating fires!

 "Washerwoman's Beach" - almost right across the street from my friend's cottage

"Berrara Beach" near Sussex Inlet, just north of Bendalong 

A plover enjoying a walk along the beach with me

Unfortunately the weather did a pretty good job of kiboshing any plans I might have had for extended periods of time on the beach, but I did manage at least a walk along the beach every day - even if I did end up soaked to the skin on a couple of occasions.  And the weather did give us an 'excuse' to go out and explore the area a little bit more than we might have otherwise.

Gotta love these very real lawn ornaments

Why not nail your flip-flops (known here as thongs) to a tree and then throw your surfboard up the tree too?

And when the sun did actually peek out at 7:23pm on our last day there we had to actually take a picture of it!

Although the weather might not have been too great, my experiences with wildlife, especially kangaroos, was extraordinary!!  You could see roo poo all over the front lawn so I knew they had to be around, and on all of the days I was there it wasn't just the poo, but the roos themselves that were present on the lawn.

On my last day in Bendalong I got the chance to spend some prolonged time with this little girl - a young one who had, for reasons unknown, been separated from her mother but was still really too young to be on her own.  I am now a certified "Wildlife Life Saver" and after looking after her for several hours she was finally taken away by Wildlife Rescue Services to be fed, looked after, and then released back into the wild again when she's a bit older.

Another thing ticked off the bucket list - in Sydney, Australia

It's been 3 years and that's long enough between visits... so here I am back in Sydney again at the start of my visit back here to Australia.

I'm staying with a friend who lives in Clovelly - and her place couldn't be more lovely!  Right across the street from the beach and a 20 minute bus ride from the city centre and harbour, with the closest bus stop literally in front of her building.  The absolute perfect location to get over jet-lag and acclimatize to the Southern Hemisphere and summer weather.

Clovelly is also in the middle of a gorgeous coastal walk that starts south of here and goes up to Bondi.  This walk, from Clovelly to Bondi is how I spent one afternoon.

This is Clovelly Bay and Beach and the yellow building just behind the trees is where my friend lives

 Along the coastal walk from Clovelly to Bondi

 Bronte Beach - along the coastal walk

A cormorant along the way

Bondi Beach and pool

And how could I possibly be in Sydney on New Year's Eve, and not see the fireworks from the Harbour Bridge?  I couldn't - so at 10:00am on December 31st I headed to the Royal Botanic Gardens to stake out a vantage point as close to the end of Mrs. Macquarie's Point as I could get.  Joining me for the day/night were two friends, and luck was definitely on my side and I ended up with a spot on the ground directly in front of one of the firework barges and with views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Two aircraft carriers in the Sydney Harbour that day

Part of the evenings festivities included a demonstration by the tug boats that work on the harbour,

and once it was dark there were lovely light displays as well as a very cool "Parade of Lights" which involved many of the harbour boats and ferries, parading around the harbour outlined in only white lights.  The effect was absolutely beautiful!

And then it was fireworks time!  Of course there's no way a small digital camera could possibly do justice to these fireworks, so you'll just have to believe me when I saw it was absolutely spectacular!! It is as great, and better, than anything you've ever seen on television!

And now, "seeing the New Year's Eve fireworks from the Sydney Harbour Bridge" has been ticked off my bucket list.   And depending on where you live you might appreciate this picture of our midnight picnic - remembering of course that we were out in a public park.

A quiet day on New Year's Day, so I did a little more of the coastal walk, this time in the other direction from Clovelly to Coogee Beach.

 New Year's Day - the Australian way

Coogee Beach

And before I leave Sydney I figured I'd better, at least once, go into the city Centre and spend a little bit of time people watching, and taking the odd photo or two, at the Sydney Harbour.

Sydney Town Hall

 The Queen Victoria Building -  built in 1898