Sydney summers on the beach

Waves crashing at Avalon

Of all the places I've travelled to in the world, the only beaches coming close to Australia's have been Hawaii's, and let's face it... much of the sand lying on Hawaii's beaches is from Australia anyhow! This summer has been an odd one, weather-wise, so my friend Claire and I agreed on a day, and said we'd go to the beach, rain hail or shine.

The beach at Dee Why

We headed north, to Sydney's beautiful Northern Beaches and ran into a bit of foul weather... It rained most of the way to Palm Beach, however we did get a bit of a break when we stopped for lunch at Avalon.

Claire relaxing on the beach

Then we headed back towards the city, and by the time we got to Dee Why (Just before we were about to give up and go to a movie at Warringah Mall) so we stopped off for a relaxing afternoon on the beach. It was great - one of those beautiful (however still cool) afternoons we get here in Sydney, just before summer kicks in.

Claire and I at Dee Why

Barefoot Bowls at Mosman

Left: Stormclouds rolling in, Right: Here I am with Jodie (Left) and Kate (Centre)

As our 'End of busy season' (implying that there was a quiet season that I've not yet seen) function for work, we had a barefoot bowls day at Mosman (conveniently in walking distance from my place!). It was fairly dicey weather, you can see above the stormclouds rolling in, however we still got a fair bit of play in.

A great day was had by all, and I even learned to bowl a bit!

2006 City to Surf

Left: A winter's day at Bondi, Right: Alison and I at the start line

2006 City to Surf was held on a beautiful winter's day. The City to Surf is held every year in Sydney, and consists of a 14km run or walk from Hyde Park in the City to Bondi Beach. I've taken part on a number of occasions, usually it's the work sponsored marquee at the end that keeps me going. The course goes through some of the prettiest parts of Sydney, and includes a landmark, the aptly named 'Heartbreak Hill'. It's quite a famous race really, and attracts many professional runners, as well as the cartoon characters and gorillas amongst families and corporate groups making up the 'Back of the Pack'.

Left: Gorillas on course for Bondi, and Right: A sea of red at the start line

This year, Alison and Cameron, some friends of mine were also doing the course so we ran (read 'walked') all the way to Bondi together. As usual, the marquee put up a good performance by supplying us with a decent barbecue and a few drinks at the end.

Band playing on the roof of Double Bay's Golden Sheaf Hotel, and Alison and Cam enjoying the barbecue at Bondi

There's no place like home...

Whew! As most of you know, I've been back in Sydney since July. Given it's now November, that means it's taken me about 4 months to get the trip posts all up here...

I'll have lots of Sydney adventures posted soon too - I've still been having heaps of fun since I got back here. There's also parts of my trip which may not have made it to the blog... So those will be coming up too from time to time!