10 April 2010

Our third weekend in Sydney and we think we may have blown out our feet, like we did in Berlin last year.  We have walked everywhere.  From supermarket to supermarket, hauling heavy bags of groceries home every other day.  From front door to office door and back again, daily.  And from the Inner West to the CBD to the North Shore to the Eastern Suburbs.  Hard to believe, but there are still dozens of City Walk Sydney cards to go.  The cool thing about walking in this town, besides seeing the sights and neighborhoods up close, is that it will get you from point A to point B faster than in a car.  Hands down, it’s the way to go.  Until our hip joints wear out, that is.

Feeling a titch tired today, we took a ferry to East Balmain and walked the peninsula west of the city.  The Balmain neighborhood was fantastic, with the cutest commercial district yet.  It appears one might even be able to bike from Balmain to Camperdown (where I work) with the safety of a few off-road lanes.  The downside to Balmain – no train service.  Like the cars, the buses get caught in traffic, and despite their extensive and frequent service, they can’t quite compete with having the train as a primary commuting option. 

If you’ve noticed that we’ve been troubled by at least one aspect of every neighborhood we’ve visited, you’d be right on target.  We’re still searching for that home base that has it all, defined on our want list as good public transportation options, reasonable commute to my office (which no longer needs to be a bike commute, given the apparent lack of safe city cycling routes here), good walking routes out the front door, decent access to services (particularly a supermarket), and if we can swing it – a neighborhood with access to an “I’m in Sydney!” view.  Oh, and a place where local friends could and would come visit (i.e., be able to park their cars), assuming we make a few more of them.

Our latest thoughts … Newtown/Erskineville (where we currently reside) ticks all the major boxes except for the walking routes and view.  As much as we want it to be, given how nice our rental unit is and the proximity of Neighbor Cynthia, it’s not ideal for gals like us who like to go for an evening stroll.  The Eastern Suburbs (i.e., beach communities) are closer to what we want, but depending on how far out we’d go, could make my commute to work a little lengthy, particularly if it would require a bus-train-bus combo to get there.  And the other Inner West (i.e., Balmain) has the train issue we spoke of, which might be do-able but we’re hesitant.

Not all is doom and gloom, though.  The lower North Shore has risen to the top of our list, if we can find a clean and affordable residence there.  These neighborhoods might be a little light on the commercial-services-out-your-front-door aspect, but they offer us what we crave the most – great walking and great views out your front door.  We love to have a few cute and handy neighborhood restaurants, but beyond that, let’s face it – we are less about eating out than we are about walking out the door and enjoying the great outdoors.  Knowing that about ourselves is helping us focus our search, even if that’s not so apparent from our rambling on and on about it in the blog.

11 April 2010

Gina swam in the South Pacific today.  An oceanside pool, to be exact, but it’s fed by the Tasman Sea, so it counts. 

We started the day at Coogee Beach, where we’d returned for a bit of sun and surf.  Sitting under the burning sun on the sandy shore, we realized that we were, in fact, ill-prepared for a day at the beach.  It was hot and we had no umbrella for shade.  It was sandy and we had no beach towels.  And somehow we had forgotten to put on our swimsuits.  Obviously we’re not from around these parts.

Too hot, uncomfortable, and pale to continue mingling with the tan and lightly-clad bodies littered all around us, we decided to finish the southern stretch of the Coastal Walk from a few weeks before, heading from Coogee toward Maroubra Beach (card #28, conveniently stashed in Gina’s backpack).  More outstanding ocean and rugged shoreline views awaited us, peppered with oceanside saltwater pools and a hidden gem of a rocky beach ideal for our afternoon lunch. 

Shortly before Maroubra, we came upon the Mahon Pool.  The Aussies are brilliant when it comes to shoreline usage.  Mahon Pool was another example of their creativity, where a naturally flat, relatively smooth-bottomed rocky shoreline has been converted, with the aid of a few concrete walls, into a scenic and safe shoreline swimming pool.  It’s a great vista to be able to sit right on the ocean’s edge, watching the waves break in front of you while not being on that edge of that oh-oh-that’s-a-big-one-and-I-better-move-fast-or-I’m-gonna-get-dragged-out-to-sea feeling.

Improvising when it came to her swimsuit – i.e., wading in in her clothes – Gina couldn’t resist the charms of the Mahon Pool.  It was only after she finally took the full plunge (after a solid 15 minutes of standing and wincing and contemplating her actions in the rather cold water) that we realized, for the second time today, that we had no towels.  Now we are grateful for the hot sun, further reminding us that life is all about perspective.

You know what else life is about?  Crazy people on public buses.  We are discovering this to be a universal fact.  On our way home, this took the form of an elderly Greek man who felt it his duty to tell us how his wife, who took a seat across the bus and was completely ignoring him, was crazy.  This wasn’t done with words but instead with hand gestures and inappropriate laughter.  Never a dull moment on public transport.