Sydney Days

Two days later we began childminding part two.   This time it was the other son's children who needed some entertaining.  They live in Caringbah which is in the south of metropolitan Sydney near Cronulla.  It is about an hour and a half from Pymble by train or a bit over an hour by car.  We prefer public transport as we can read books or play games while being transported.  However, there is the occasional irritant of people deciding they want you to listen to both sides of a telephone call or their music or their other viewing pleasures.   The day promised to be sunny and warm so ideal for being outside.  Bev decided that we would take them to Watson's Bay.  So a trip to Caringbah  was taken to get the children who fortunately were ready when we arrived.  We both had backpacks to take books and other forms of entertainment.   Bev took charge of entertainment on the journey to Circular Quay.  Fortunately they are...

Photo nothing to do with the days events.  Childminding was the task for the day.  Bev was the childminder and I was emotional support.  As it turned out I was mainly the buggy pusher.  Bev's son lives in St Peters and nearby is Marrickville where it it had been suggested that the little boy be taken to a library.  They are two inner west suburbs that were once working class areas but with their proximity to the CBD they have gentrified and further intensified.   Bev went a bit earlier than me to get instructions from her son and to acquaint herself with the rigours of managing a 18 month old toddler who is actually quite cute.    I turned up at the Marrickville library just as Bev was ready to relocate to a café for a coffee.   Marrickville is the electorate of the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his electorate office was in the main street surrounded by pro- Palestine protestor flags and placards with a few people keeping vigil.   ...

Looking toward the bush covered hills near Berowa   Bev was keen to go on a bike ride.  It had been sometime since I rode up and down so decent hills so we took the flattest route we could find within a reasonable train ride from Pymble.  I wanted to do a bit of warming up before I tackled steep climbs given the ones around here.   We took the train to Wahroonga and decided we needed to start with a coffee in a local café nearby.  It was quite a good one.  A side comment is that coffees in Sydney can be up to Wellington standards or not and it is a random chance on what one might get! The weather was rather cold for Sydney and I did not quite have the thermal warmth that I would have had in Wellington.  The result was that despite having a good ride I felt quite cold at times despite the energy output.  I was pleased that I could do the climbing as that is a positive for our upcoming trip to Europe.   In all about 35 kilometres were covered. ...

  Eveleigh Farmers Market on Saturday JR has asked that I write a blog about my Sydney adventures.  So this will be an occasional blog about what I have been getting up to during the month that I will have been in Sydney, ostensibly to watch the Tour de France on free-to-air TV.   The wonderful thing about Australia is they have two state owned broadcasters.  The ABC which is advertisement free and SBS which has a few advertisements but nothing like what we have on our TV back home.  SBS are the broadcaster for the TdeF and they do a good job of it.   Getting to Sydney this time was a bit more of a challenge as a few days before I left to come over I got a message to say that my flight to Sydney had been cancelled and they would be booking me on an alternative flight.  After a day of not having heard from them and due to fly out the next day I got a bit concerned so rang Air New Zealand.  It seems they had a couple of options for me, one...

Friday was Bev's day off work and as we had almost seen Tom Cruise by accident we decided we would have a look at his latest movie.  Bev took me to a cinema in Chatswood that I had not been to before and we ended up paying a minor fortune to sit in seats that reclined, had a half table and was generally very comfortable.  We understood after that why the cost was so high.  The film itself was very good and even Bev who won't go to a James Bond movie with me enjoyed it.  Some of the stunts were amazing as were the special effects.  All in all a very enjoyable three hours or so.  We even managed to time it so that we missed nearly 25 minutes worth of advertisements before the movie began.  They must make most of their money from the ads.  Chatswood has a very large Chinese population as a result there is a number of Chinese restaurants of varying quality.  There is a good one in the mall that we had gone to before so as a treat we called in for...

It was such a nice day on Wednesday that the road beckoned.  I always try to ride at least once to Brooklyn which is a very lumpy ride involving lots of small climbs with the occasional bit of relief when one goes down the other side. The result is a lot of climbing and a sense of having had a good workout.  I got to Brooklyn with plenty of time kill before catching the train back to Pymble having cycled 40 kilometres or so. Foreshore Brooklyn