Or at least catches the bus to Bondi beach! The weather wasn't the best but I splashed out on a return bus ticket for $9.20 and hoped I would be able to work out where to get off. There's none of this nice, talking bus information or dot messages about the upcoming stop here in Sydney you know. So 20th century. You can even pay with *money* on some buses! In fact, it's a bit of a mess really. On some buses you have to get a ticket before you board at certain times of day. So you have the situation where some people want to pay by cash and they might be able to depending upon the time; others have bought a ticket with a magnetic strip which needs to go clunk in the machine and out again and others yet have an Opal card which looks like it might be something akin to an Oyster. I don't know how you get an Opal card as a visitor as the ads all say to get one online, which I presume means the thing is then sent to you.... Apologies if this is not correct. I give a tourist's eye view here. Sometimes you realise how good some things are at home and how we take them for granted.
Where was I? Ah yes, well, to be brutally honest, I was a bit disappointed. Bondi beach has this reputation for sun, sea, surf, beautiful people, life-savers...... And it's a nice beach with something like Poole or Bournemouth immediately behind it (at least it's not Newquay). The surf looked good and the sand is very fine and soft on the toes but really, the 4 Mile Beach at Port Douglas is so much more beautiful. I think the most amazing beach I've ever stepped on is still the north west coast of Pemba. There were people in the surf at Bondi, although it seems a lot of surfing involves paddling out and waiting for the right wave to turn up. There's a coastal path which gets good use by runners and walkers (not so many cyclists due to the hills and steps I suppose), so I followed that. There were some gorgeous views, especially when it wasn't raining.
There was one of those 'people on the bus' on the way back, commenting on every groan of the engine as there was obviously a problem underneath us somewhere. The lady and her husband (Aussies) eventually got off to go the Australian museum "Well if we go to Circular Quay then it'll take us 20 minutes to get back again and we've been on this bus for over an hour and I didn't know which we were coming back into Sydney and if we'd caught a taxi it would have been much quicker because there's a bus stop every 50 metres don't you think it's ridiculous oh look there's an aboriginal art sale....". There were definitely people talking about her once she'd gone. Blitz spirit I think we call it.
To mark the passing of my last full day in Sydney I opted for a takeaway pizza from the pub next door, along with a bottle of wine. It was raining, I know you shouldn't buy take-out from a pub, ok? Anyway, it costed in quite well as they refunded me half the cost of the pizza when I pointed that it wasn't to my specification of "please leave out the zucchini". And the pizza was lovely when I finally got it. So, the lights of Vivid have now dimmed for the final time and I have to sort my bag for departure in the morning. I'm off to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. Definitely not a city. It will be different to the last week.
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