Last Day in Sydney

 Well, not quite the last day--we leave tomorrow, but we took one of our favourite walks today--Heritage Trail, I think it is called. It takes you along the cliffside above the water for a couple of miles, crossing little beaches here and there, and with lots and lots of steps, up and down. With constant views out over the harbor down to the Bridge and The Opera House. The last stretch takes you inland along streets with magnificent houses overlooking the water--the area is Vaucluse, which is often mentioned as the most expensive housing area in Sydney.

When we arrived Watson's Bay, we ordered our usual Fish Chowder, which we ate accompanied by Doyles trademark lager--an excellent beer.

Gelato for dessert at Gelatissimo. 

Bus home, where we have been puttering around, filling our cases, and generally getting sorted out for our departure tomorrow.

Joan has just gone off to the Greek food place in Elizabeth Bay, where she will get carry out Barramundi and vegetables.

David Bleeds....

    Yesterday--Valentine's Day--was my appointment with Dr. Pang, the dermatologist, and over a period of a couple of hours I spent time answering every question you could think of about my health (down to 'false teeth?'), waiting around, lying in my gown, and then 'under the knife,' as they say, while he cut out and stitched four skin cancers. Three of them in awkward places--the top of my head, and one on my left forehead and one on my right temple, close to my eye--which was blackened by the operation. I felt awful when it was all over.

    Prior to the setting up of this appointment, Joan had booked matinee tickets at a small local theatre, where they were performing an old musical. So we went from the dermatologist to a cafe close to the theatre and had a small lunch, and spun out drinking our coffee until we could check in to the theatre--with me in a fair amount of pain.

The show was alright, but underwhelming.

One day later, and we have been wrestling with the various ways in which these incisions should be treated. We had been given instructions but there was a lot of ambiguity, with which we are still wrestling...finding the right size dressings, cutting away my hair in places, icing my black eye. All of which has kept me in a state of misery for most of the day. And Nurse Joan Nightingale has been doing her very best to sort out these problems. Poor Joan...

Cronulla: Friday Feb.9

    Today we went by train to Cronulla...a seaside town on the coast, to the south of Botany Bay, about an hour from central Sydney.

    From the train, we took a ferry to Bundeena, which sits inside an extensive bay open to the Pacific. After a short walk through suburban streets, with large number of architecturally interesting houses overlooking the sea, we continued across a sandy beach and along a rocky rough trail through the bush above the water to the headland where the bay ends, looking out over the Pacific.

    We retraced our steps, caught the 2.00 pm ferry back to Cronulla, and crossed the peninsula from the ferry wharf to the Pacific side, where there was an attractive rock pool--a swimming pool where the breakers splash over the wall closest to the sea, but swimming is safe in calm water inside the pool. Joan swam for half an hour, while I sat and listened to an elderly Australian who engaged me in conversation, although apart from brief answers to his questions, it was really a monologue on his part.

    We then followed a seaside path above the sea for a couple of miles to the north, passing Cronulla's South Beach--lots of surfers and kayakers--and a taking in a section of Cronulla' North Beach, which stretches for miles in a great curve out towards the Pacific.

    We reversed our steps and ended close to railway station, which abuts a long traffic-less street, with shops, restaurants, beauty parlours, liquor stores, gyms, physiotherapists, nail and eyelash experts, burger and pizza places, hair-dressers etc. etc.

    A meal in what seemed like a modest fish and chip shop provided us each with a super meal of grilled barramundi, chips, and salad, with two Peronis to wash it down. And when we were through, we bought gelatos at another store. 

    A train was in the station when we returned there, and back we went to Sydney.

    I would just add that my pedometer for today shows 11.2 miles.

Thursday February 8th

 Joan is having a Zoom call sometime over the next hour, and I have brought my computer onto the balcony to pass the time with a bit of blogging.

Let me try to mention a number of what I see as distinctive features of Australian life.

Flesh---it being summer, there are acres of male and female flesh exposed. Women wear tight fitting black lycra shorts that expose a great deal of their thighs. And higher up, the neck-lines are very low, often with a considerable exposure of breasts. Men, also, are very often in wop-tops and shorts--and I don't just mean young men--all ages. Older men seem unembarrassed to expose their spindly old legs or their varicose veins.

Tattoos. Ubiquitous...males, females, old, young. Arms, shoulders, legs, necks, faces---whole backs, whole frontal body tattoos. Bald heads. Lots of young girls have tattoos, some with texts like 'love is all.' And some males are, quite frankly, horrific--all exposed flesh tattooed, and presumable the unexposed flesh is also tattooed. But I should also mention that we have seen couple of establishments advertising 'Laser Tattoo Removal.'

Fitness. An obvious fetish here is physical fitness. No row of shops anywhere you go does not have a gym or fitness centre. And as you pass, you can see people at work on weight machines, on treadmills, sometimes even boxing. In the park below us, the runners never stop--sometimes dozens in groups, perhaps running clubs.

Immigrants. I think the immigrant population of Australia is about 30 percent, and as you walk around you here you constantly hear languages other than English being spoken.

Food delivery. In the neighbourhood where we are staying, there are dozens of helmeted guys on electric bicycles delivering food. They often pass by on the paths in the park below our balcony.

Wednesday 7th February...Steps...

 We went for a long walk today, starting at what is called The Spit, way to the east on the north side of the harbour, and pausing in Balmoral to have a lunch, splitting between us a grilled barramundi, chips, and salad.

For most of the way we had wonderful views out over the water towards the entrance to the harbour area from the Pacific--called, I think, The Heads. Occasionally we were on suburban streets, but the lack of views was compensated for by the extraordinary number of houses of real architectural interest. We were sometimes on sandy beaches--Chinaman's Beach, and on some long stretches of sand as we approached and arrived at Balmoral.

Barramundi, incidentally, is the best white fish we have ever tasted. It is available everywhere here, but rarely to be found in Washington.

We needed to check the map and see the best way to walk to the main bus route back into Sydney. Joan had her phone, and we chose what seemed the slightly shorter of the two possible ways.

But after walking in the sea front and turning left, we realised that we were facing a steep uphill climb. And we were uncertain if we had the right street. We asked a passer-by if the road led to the main road we wanted--she said 'yes--but you might be better off on a bus...' 

She was right. To cut a long story short, the uphill was seemingly endless. Mostly steps, but short uphills to the next set of steps..and on and on, and on and on...

I have just checked on a topographic map of the area, and the elevation at the top of the steps is 90 metres above sea level--that is, about 300 feet. If the steps had been unbroken by the short stretches of uphill, and the height of each step was, say, 10 inches, then we must have climbed the equivalent of 360 steps....

At 89....but the good thing is that the strain was in my legs and not, fingers crossed, in my heart....