Every year at this time I meet up with a dear friend and we spend a few days together celebrating her mother's( effectionally known as "The Girl") birthday.
This year I travelled to Sydney and too the opportunity to catch up with my sister for a few days as well.
On Friday morning I travelled to Sydney by train and bus and train, and finally another train. It was a long day of travel, but I enjoyed it.
My sister lives in southern Sydney not too far from the Royal National Park and has water at the bottom of her garden.
I woke each morning to lovely views and enjoyed my morning tea out on the deck.
I found I usually had company each morning, with a friendly family of deer wandering around the yard eating everything in their path. I personally loved the deer but my siter and her husband have a love/hate relationship with them. They constantly invade their garden and what they don't eat they destroy. They swim across the bay from the National Park.
My sister had told me about some beautiful flannel flowers growing at Kurnell and asked if I would like to take a walk out there to see them.
We set off on the walk a 6klm round trip along the sandstone cliffs of kurnell.
There is mostly dedicated walkways and occasionally it is just along the beautiful sandstone.
The cliffs were stunning,
My sister and I got a selfie,
As we wandered along we were fortunate enough to watch a yacht race, it was beautiful to watch those graceful boats in competition. We also spotted a group of divers down in the water enjoying themselves .
We made our way along the path and I started to see the stunning flannel flowers that they had talked about,
We reached the halfway point, The Cape Baily Lighthouse and then headed back along our path.
I got a picture of my sister and her husband,
There were other beautiful flowers as well, the Banksias were lovely too.
I have never seen such a display of flannel flowers , we sometimes get them here at the farm, but these were just glorious.
Whilst at my sister's place was also able to catch up with my brother and his son and grandson which was lovely.
On Monday morning I caught the train into Central Sydney and caught up with my friend from Newcastle.
We headed to our apartment we had booked ,dropped our luggage and headed to Bondi, to do the coastal walk from the famous Bondi Icebergs Club to Coogee.This walk was also a 6lm walk( one way)
Once again there was amazing coastal scenery, no photo can do it justice.
Once again a selfie was called for,
We passed by this cemetery on the hill( what a stunning view they have for eternity)
This pretty little bay was called Gordon's Bay !
We alos passed by after some quiet reflection, the memorial to all the poor soles that lost their lives in the Bali bombing.
There was the beautiful old entrance to the ocean baths and the bathes themselves( I think there were quite a few teenagers skipping school at the bathes.
We had lunch at the Coogee Bay Hotel and then bussed it back to our apartment.
Our apartment was lovely and spacious, the view from our 5th floor toward the city was nice,
The night view was pretty special too,
sadly the next morning the view wasn't quite as clear, smoke from nearby bushfires and shrouded the city, producing one of the worst days on record for air quality in Sydney.
Our plan today was to head into the city, meet up with another friend and head to The Queen Victoria Building to celebrate The Girl's birthday in style with a scrumptious High Tea.
The Christmas tree was up,
So, we had the photo that we always try to do,
The Queen Victoria Building is a stunning old building that almost was destroyed but thanks to a persistent group of people was saved for future generations to enjoy.
The High Tea room is stunning,
The food was delicious and the company wonderful.
What a treat we had !, I am sure The Girl would have enjoyed it as it was one of her favourite special things to do.
That night we went to the movies and saw "Last Christmas", I hadn't been to the movies in ages and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Next morning we headed out on the ferry, crossing the harbour,
Passing by the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
There was a huge cruise ship docked in the Quay.
Our destination was Taronga Zoo,
I haadn't been to the zoo for about 30 years and it was lovely to return there and see all the changes (for the better) that had taken place.
I loved the elephants, especially the baby having such a good time in the water, the chimps and the gorillas as always just fascinate me,
The Meercats, Well what can I say ! who doesn't love those sweet little creatures.
The Giraffe had an itchy spot to scratch,
There were lovely old stone seats around the zoo to sit and take in the views across to the city.
We saw the ring tailed Limas,
The Capybara ,a rodent which is like a giant guinea pig.
We watched a seal show which was brilliant, with the group of visiting school children down front in the "splash Zone" getting soaking wet and loving every minute of it.
We saw tiny penguins, and bird life,
Last but not least we visited the Sumatron Tigers, WOW !!!
I loved our day at the zoo, I would love to take Brian back down to Sydney and do it all over again, and we might just do that one day soon.
We headed back to the city and I farewelled my friend until we meet up again next year, and we headed to our respective trains, her back to Newcastle and myself back to my sister's house for one last night.
Early the next morning I began my days journey back to our farm.
The combination of bush fires and drought has had a tragic effect on our countryside,and I took a couple of pictures out of the bus window.
It saddens me to see the country like this, hopefully we will get rain soon and things will turn around.
I had a wonderful break away from the farm, the constant dry and the dust storms that seem to roll through every couple of days does get you down, I have come home refreshed and keen to get on with things.
My time with my friend is precious, we have met in November every year for 10 years now, and I hope we continue to do so for many more to come.
Please take care of you and yours until we meet again down the track.
Cheers
Jane .
