Sunday 23^rd March
Over to Darling Harbour on the ferry to watch a bit of the ‘Hoopla Festival’ which is a sort of best of the street entertainers. We didn’t get going very early so by the time we’d watched one act it was time for supper, so a short walk over to Chinatown and down into that underground Dixon food-court for some more of that sizzling ‘hot pot’ stir-fry.

Monday 24^th March
Did a spot of geocaching. Geocaching, for the uninitiated, involves going to a web-site (http://www.geocaching.com/), finding a cache that is reasonably close to your current location, getting out your hand-held GPS (Global Positioning System – they’re putting them in phones now) and trying to find a hidden cache of goodies. You need clues too, as GPSs are not accurate enough to pinpoint the location of a small box absolutely. Once you’ve found the cache you take something from it and preferably leave something behind. You then go back to the web-site and register your retrieval/deposit.

Ira and Anne have done this sort of thing in North America and were anxious to leave something they had picked up in Florida. We found the little box of stuff in a park in Kirribilli and the exchange was made.

There was a new play at the '$10 on a Monday Stables Theatre', so after a quick supper it was off to see “The Kid”. It was a bit intense to say the least.

Tuesday 25^th March
Cheap movie day, this time in Chatswood, North Sydney, after lunch in a totally Asian shopping mall. We saw the Australian movie “The Black Balloon” (good but not what you’d call a fun flick) and “Be Kind Rewind” which was a little too twee for its own good.

Wednesday 26^th March
Lazy day in North Sydney with swordfish lunch at Costis and twofer coffee at Gloria Jeans. This fellow was playing in Kirribilli near the station. The amazing acoustics are created by his playing at the opening of a tunnel which passes under the rail and road approaches to the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Thursday 27^th March
One of the popular local walks is along the shore from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach. We did it in reverse, starting with this pleasant view in Coogee

This rocky bay

Gordons Bay with their unusual way of storing boats.

Clovelly Bay which is a strange mix of rocky cove, sandy beach and swimming pool all in one.

Waverley cemetery where you get the million dollar view for eternity, or at least until it’s replaced with condos.

Nelson Bay which is smaller and less developed than Coogee or Bondi.

and these crazy guys who are actually on surf boards off a beach that’s just rocks.

Once we got to Bondi I did some body surfing in very large and scary waves.

Friday 28^th March
Took the train to Newtown and some of that vegetarian Thai stuff – no abalone though at lunch time. Then wandered round the area, before getting a twofer coffee at the Newtown Café. There’s always some appealing building like this attractive little petrol station with flower boxes.

Saturday 29th March
Carol was under the weather with a cold and decided to stay in bed, so Ira, Anne and I decided to do the things that Carol wouldn’t want to do like visit the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling harbour.

One of their special exhibits was a collection from a French museum of toy boats (Bateaux Jouets). Sounds boring I know but these things were the very first toy boats made and very intricate such as this battleship-like strange thing.

Many of the toys were submarine-like clockwork devices that are sealed up, so x-rays were taken to see the insides.

How about this game

where you launched the clockwork torpedo against the battleship and if you hit it in the right spot the ship split in two and sank.

There were other bizarre creations many of which were one-offs.

A very popular exhibit was this ‘beer can’ boat – yes it does float, they have beer can boat regattas. Most of the beer is VB (Victoria Bitter) my favourite Aussie beverage.

This figurehead is from the sailing ship the HMS Nelson which was commissioned 1814, nine years after his death at Trafalgar. It doesn’t look too impressive in the photograph but at about 20’ long is quite something to see.

For those mechanically minded, one of their more interesting exhibits is the engine taken off what was once the ferry that used to ply the harbour before the famous bridge was built and was actually in Darwin when it was bombed by the Japanese. It’s a steam engine with three cylinders that use lower and lower pressure steam and are correspondingly larger and larger.

After free coffees at the nearby casino we headed for Mad Mex’s Mexican food where they roll you a fresh burrito on the spot, stuffed with anything you like.