Last weekend was both a holiday long weekend in Victoria (Labour Day), and also my 32nd birthday - yikes! That sounds old. But hurray for having my birthday on a long weekend! We flew up to Sydney with mr and mrssweatybetty on Friday after work for a lovely weekend in a beautiful city.
Saturday (my actual birthday) we went for lunch with mrwandymcnoble's uncle and aunt who live in Sydney. We were at a golf course right on the beach and had a bottle of prosecco (my favourite!) with our lunch.
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| Birthday lunch |
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| Birthday prosecco compliments of mrscanada! |
Mrssweatybetty is from Sydney (well, near enough) and lots of her friends live in the city. We went to one of their houses that evening for a girly evening of wine and gossip. That is something I've not done in a while as we have a limited number of friends here in Melbourne at the moment, so it was good to hang out with the girls, even if I had just met them! The boys went for a night out in Sydney to the Opera Bar, and from what I can tell had a fun evening without us!
Sunday we went to Balmoral Beach for a day of sunbathing and kayaking in the sea, and then the 4 of us took the ferry from Manly to the city centre during sunset for one of the most breathtaking views I have ever seen! The Harbour Bridge is such an impressive structure, and the Opera House looks amazing at night (although I think it looks less amazing in the day - not as white as it looks in pictures). We had a delayed birthday dinner celebration at a fantastic wine and tapas place in The Rocks, the historical part of Sydney.
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| Harbour Bridge - view from the ferry |
Monday was our last day, and of course we had to visit Bondi Beach before we left. Not in the least because mrwandymcnoble is a big fan of the reality TV show "Bondi Rescue". Ok, I will admit, I kind of like the show too! Even if every episode is pretty much centred around fully clothed tourists almost drowning in the waves and then being saved by the awesome Bondi lifeguards. I was expecting to be a bit let down by Bondi as it is such an obvious tourist destination, but it did not disappoint. The beach is stunning and we had so much fun playing around in the waves. It is certainly different to the beaches in Melbourne! You feel much more like you are in the ocean in Sydney and water is a lot warmer! Unfortunately they were not filming Bondi Rescue while we were there and we didn't see any of mrwandymcnoble's favourites like Hoppo and Chappo.
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| Bondi Beach |
We did a cliff walk from Bondi to Bronte beach, and it was just stunning view after stunning view.
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| Bondi to Bronte cliff walk |
I was not really expecting to like Sydney as much as I did, but it is a fantastic city to visit and I can't wait to go back. Probably the only downfall would be it is really spread out and you have to drive everywhere, and from what I have heard traffic is horrendous. (But, so is Melbourne traffic to be fair!) Most Australians seem to either love Melbourne or Sydney and hate the other one, but I don't quite understand that. They are both fantastic cities, and I am quite happy to live in one and visit the other when I can!
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