Kincumber, Australia, Australia

I’ve spent the last week up north between Sydney and the Central Coast. It was a very long holiday weekend here, so I figured I would come up and see my friends before we all headed off in our own directions. I flew up to Sydney on Thursday morning and arrived in the city around 9am. I met Erin, dropped off my bag and headed out to enjoy the city. Luckily I had another nice weather day so after walking around the CBD for a while, I hopped on a bus and headed out to Bondi Beach.

I found a place called the Beach Burrito Company and it was awesome! Exactly as advertised, it was excellent Mexican food on the beach, what more could you ask for? After my tacos and Corona, I headed down the beach for a walk to see what was happening. It was much quieter than it had been last time I was here, but the weather was probably a little nicer. With it being the Thursday before the long weekend, most people were probably at work, or if they had gotten off early, they were already outside of the city. There was also no surfing competition on, so that lulled the crowds as well. Regardless, it was a great day to find a bit of shade, yeah I didn’t want to go home with 4th degree burns, and just relax.

After a couple hours of this, I headed back into the city and met Erin at Town Hall station to head up to the Central Coast. We got home and settled in before heading out to their local lawn bowling club for dinner and a few tipples. It was a perfect place to start out because the food was good, and more importantly, it was cheap! We had a few drinks there before Jono met us and we eventually headed off to a Mexican place up the road called Rojo Rockets. This marked the first time I’ve ever had white wine sangria. I’m not much of a wine fan, but this was actually not bad. It had lychees in it, which Erin was convinced tasted like big grapes, I didn’t agree. I found out I’m not a huge fan of the lychee, but live and learn.

On Friday Erin took me to the Royal Easter Show at the Sydney Olympic center. For those of you who have been to the Woodstock Fair, it is just like that, only with paved walkways. It was full of food, animals, shows and show bags. I had no idea what a show bag was before we got there, but I now think they are one of the best ideas ever! Tons of companies put together these bags full of stuff, whether it be candy, perfume, magazines, toys or anything. There were bags from Kit Kat, Willy Wonka, FHM, Marie Claire, Family Guy, Simpsons, Coca Cola, all kinds of stuff. Bags were mostly between $5 and $25, and all of them were worth much more than what you paid. Unfortunately by the time we got to the show bag place, a few of them had sold out, but I still managed to get a couple of candy bags to go home with.

We also watched a few shows at the arena before calling it a night. We got to see an actual game of polo, which I didn’t realize was played in real life. That was followed by a rodeo and then a motocross show. It was great! The arena was nearly filled with 21,000 people for most of the shows and it was a great atmosphere. We hopped on the train to get back up north of the city before the huge crowds followed suit. The show bags were a great idea, they kept me very busy on the train and made me realize how much I missed Gobstoppers and Nerds!

Saturday, Sunday and Monday didn’t consist of much more than watching TV and playing with Erin’s dogs, Lilly and Yoda. Erin and Jono headed down to Victoria for a family reunion and I was house/dog sitting for them. It was great because I’ve really missed having dogs at home. The weather wasn’t great for the whole weekend, so I wasn’t able to go out walking and explore very much, but it was Easter weekend, so I’m not sure how much would have been open anyway.

Erin and Jono got back on Monday night and were completely knackered, so we just relaxed that night and watched some more TV. On Tuesday Erin took me for a walk to Little Beach which was absolutely stunning. To get there we had to walk through this rain forest, which I never expected to be so close to their neighborhood. When we walked out of the forest we walked straight onto the beach where this small cove was surrounded by high cliffs. It was beautiful. We spent about an hour just walking around the rocks and seeing how high the waves would crash onto the cliffs. We moved on to Hardy Bay for lunch with Jono and then took the dogs out for a walk in Saratoga, where Erin grew up. It was a great day, because it got me out of the house for a bit so I didn’t go stir crazy, but we also had plenty of time to chill when the rain came back on.

It’s now Wednesday and I’m back in Sydney. I got the train in this morning with Erin, and am trying to stay busy for the day until my flight leaves at 10:10pm. Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t been as kind today as it was on my last day in Sydney, so I’ve spent most of the day ducking in and out of cafes, shops and libraries trying to stay dry. The weather on this trip hasn’t been great for me, but it’s been really nice to see Erin and the dogs again. Now it’s back to Melbourne to figure out what I’m going to do with my life!