A few days in Sydney

Sunday  – Tuesday 12 – 14 May 2013 – Sydney

I was not up too early on Sunday, I took half a pill as I was desperate for a sleep and it was really noisy sleeping so close to the street, the half a pill made no difference sadly and I was still feeling tired – my state for most of the Sydney weekend.

The weather was as fabulous as yesterday which was fine by me as today we were taking a trip into Newtown, one of Sydney’s inner suburbs and a bit of walking around was planned.

I walked up Manly beach again to Nicole’s place and snapped a shot up both ends of the beach. You can see why people live here !

And this is not a bad way to get to work in the mornings either!

Newtown has a bit of street art and some cool shops and is one of very few Sydney suburbs I could happily live in. It is also the scene of some very drunken evenings with Australian work colleagues back a couple of decades. Especially here…

The street art was pretty cool and there was plenty of it around, I will put some more up on another post, but I particularly liked this.

This mural is one of the better known and oldest ones, painted in 1991.

Next to this, and a more recent addition is this mural, which makes the first more poignant.

We walked around for a couple of hours before meeting one of Nicole’s Sydney friends, Azra. She showed us a bit more street art before we stopped for lunch and a wine in the sun. Soon it was time to head back to Manly for the evening – much as you don’t want to, you have just got to love that harbour bridge…

On Sunday evening we met up with Nicole’s friend Aaron in one of the Manly pubs, Manly has all been tidied up since I last visited in the mid-nineties and the old pubs are quite nice now. Sydney even has a decent range of micro-brewery beer as well, a huge step up on my last visit, though I stuck to wine and seemed to drink a wee bit more than my share. Loved this cider product from lunch.

Nicole had taken Monday off work and wanted to take a car for a drive up to the beaches north of Manly. She had not driven since arriving in Manly at the end of last year and wanted to have a wing man for the first attempt. Go Get is a car rental company with a difference, I have never heard of this before, but apparently there is a similar model in London, so I guess I am just behind the times. To use Go Get you sign up on-line and get sent a swipe card that unlocks the cars. Cars are left scattered all over the city so to use one you just book a car, find where it is parked and swipe yourself in. When you are finished you park it and let them know where it is. I have no idea how it is charged though! A great idea as the car was just round the corner!

The morning broke cloudy and was a little cool as I walked up the beach towards Nicole’s place.

We had breakfast before finding the car and heading out of Manly up the coast. We drove up to Palm Beach where we spent a couple of hours walking around and in my case, drinking a damn good coffee. Palm Beach is better known to fans of the (truly awful) soap ‘Home and Away’ as Summer Bay.

We had a great morning out, Nicole’s driving was not too scary:) and we made it back to Manly in one piece! I found this as we parked the car, an oldie but a goodie.

I had a major lie in on Tuesday morning and left my hotel at the last possible minute at 10:30. Nicole was at work for the day but I had made plans to catch up with a couple of other friends in Sydney, starting with an old recruiting/mountain biking buddy Michelle – who also happened to live in Manly.

I was then on the ferry over to Sydney city where I dumped my pack at Nicole’s office and then walked up town to meet with Winnie, an old colleague for lunch in the park.

One the way I walked through St Marten’s Place.

And past the under-renovation town hall. I love how the building has giant pictures over the bits being worked on. I have never seen this before and think it is a absolutely fabulous idea and I would love to see it elsewhere. Downtown Sydney is pretty cool – well warm, but cool all the same.

After lunch I walked around the Museum of Contemporary Arts.

Visiting artist Guan Wei was painting this mural “The journey to Australia” in the foyer, I really liked it – along with his other smaller works in the museum.

There was a really good exhibition of photos from Canadian Jeff Wall in the museum and the space was just massive, a wonderful venue.

It is impossible to visit Sydney on a sunny day without being lured across Circular Quay to the iconic Sydney Opera House. The building is just so cool it is irresistible !

And that was pretty much it.

I had a final catch up with Nicole for dinner at the uber popular Jamie’s Italian restaurant, the food was fabulous and I would have liked to have lingered and enjoyed the food slowly over a wine or two but the airport and my flight/s to London were calling.

I had a fabulous time in Sydney, Manly and Newtown were cool spots to visit and it was great to spend some time with Nicole again. till next time !!