Week 6 ~ F is for Ferry

Posted: February 8, 2015 in Sydney Harbour
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Weekend #6 means something starting with the letter F.

Neither of us had ever caught the ferry up the Parramatta River beyond Meadowbank.

Photo: metaljar

Photo: metaljar

We parked the car at Meadowbank and caught the 9am ferry up the river, past Rhodes (no ferry stop there… all that new high rise? Why not?), a stop at The Armory near the Olympic site near Silverwater (great cafe and [crowded] playground there BTW) and then a slower (7 knots – no wash) trip up to Parramatta going past Clyde, the back of UTS and past Rydalmere.

Breakfast at the cafe right at the ferry terminus and then a ferry back an hour later. Nice way to start the day.

IMG_3696

Photo: metaljar

Just a thought, though…
It’s a beautiful, cloudless summer’s day. The ferry is heading from Parramatta to the city. Do you think there might be a lot of people catching it in to spend the day in the city at Darling Harbour and Circular Quay? Especially on the $2.50 Opal card Sunday fare.

The ferry was chockers by the time it picked up another hundred on the wharf at Meadowbank. It will have then cruised stright past all and sundry at Putney and Gladesville etc. We know… we’ve watched the ferry go straight past us before.

Come on Gladys, there’s a creative solution to this problem. Please put some thought into it.

IMG_3692 Looking up the river
 IMG_3690 Near Armory Wharf
IMG_3691 Heading towards Parramatta
IMG_3695 Breakfast at Port Bar Cafe
IMG_3689 #JustWashedMyHair

Week 5 ~ E is for Everleigh Markets and Breakfast at Erskinville

Posted: February 1, 2015 in Markets
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IMG_3676Every Saturday, local NSW farmers and artisan food producers bring their fresh and seasonal produce to the Everleigh Farmers’ Market.

About 70 stallholders sell fresh produce including fruit and vegetables, meat, dairy, bread, olive oil, wine and more.

There were stalls there with produce from as far as Orange and Bateman’s Bay.

IMG_3675We had a wander, bought some dips and fruit and tried a few differnt things. Great markets.

We then went to Erskinville where we had breakfast at The Bakerman Cafe, out the front of the old Erko Post Office. We rang Nic McRobie to tell him we were around and enjoyed a coffee and catch-up with him and Jo.

Week 4 ~ D is for Dinner with our Daughter

Posted: January 27, 2015 in Driving NSW
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Australia-Map-NSW-LGA-Orange

Image: commons.wikimedia.org

Our daughter Lauren got a job on Christmas Eve as an Environmental Consultant with RW CORKERY & CO in Orange. She moved there a few weeks ago and we hadn’t had a chance to catch up with her, so this weekend we drove out to this beautiful rural city to catch up with her. We arrived after lunch on the Saturday and stayed the night and enjoyed dinner with her.

It was great to see the 2 br townhouse she has rented and hear about her work and workmates. Very proud!

Orange is actually a bigger city than Bathurst, and it’s an easy 3.5 to 4 hour drive there from Sydney.
As a city it has everything she’ll need for the next few years, so we are looking forward to quite a few visits!

Image: commons.wikimedia.org

Image: commons.wikimedia.org

Week 3 ~ C is for City Walking Tour

Posted: January 21, 2015 in Walking
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We flew home from Europe over the weekend after spending Saturday in Zurich.

We went to a flea market (damn… should have bought that second hand sled we saw!) on the way to our City Walking Tour of the Old Town in the morning.

Photo: metaljar

We met Ivan, our guide, at 11am and with about 15 in our group, set off in wet, snowy rain. We saw a few things we wouldnt have seen and learnt a bit about Zurich from Ivan, who is a Bulgarian student who has been studying in Zurich for about 5 years.

Photo: metaljar

Photo: metaljar

He showed us The Wasserkirche (Water Church), a pretty little church which is a bit back from the river but, when built, would have been right on the water. It has the blackest stained glass windows we have ever seen. The centre panel depicts Christ as would be expected, but the two panels either side depict ordinary Swiss life and track the birth, growth, life and death of a person in Zurich

old town 1

Photo: metaljar

photo: metaljar

Photo: metaljar

We had planned to spend the afternoon doing a scenic boat trip on the lake and catching the train up the mountain overlooking Zurich. However, rain and mist and fog saw us change this plan, so we caught a local tram up the hill to near the zoo where we enjoyed a drink in a cafe with the snow falling steadily… Lovely!

That night we flew overnight to Singapore Changi airport for a 2 hour stopover for a quick bit of duty free shopping before overnighting to Sydney, arriving Monday morning 7am.

Back in Australia and able to properly plan, now, for next weekend’s D and beyond.

Oh, and by the way, some boy band joined our plane in Changi, quickly making their way straight to First Class. What a shame they were called The Vamps and not something starting with C!

Week 2 ~ B is for Bahn

Posted: January 21, 2015 in Transport
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Berrelling along at 300 km/h Photo: metaljar

Berrelling along at 300 km/h
Photo: metaljar

So this weekend we caught a train from Cologne in Germany (Köln) to Annecy in France. After driving our hire car for about three weeks, we handed our car back in to Europcar at Cologne, looking forward to going on our first ever real train journey together

Photo: metaljar

Photo: metaljar

A train in Germany is called a Bahn. Train stations are Bahnhoffs (the main station in a city is called a Hauptbahnhoff).

We caught the Thalles Bahn from Cologne to Paris, rocketing along at about 300 km/h, then changed trains (and stations) in Paris to catch a slower regional train through the mountains south to Annecy.

Photo: metaljar

Photo: metaljar

Our arrival in Paris coincided with the French Charlie Hebdo rally, so we were very concerned that we wouldn’t make the connection. Made it with a good 5 minutes to spare.

Week 1 ~ A is for Alter Peter

Posted: January 9, 2015 in Walking
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This first weekend of 2015 we are in Munich; a few weeks into our holiday after arriving in Berlin, then travelling through Dresden, Prague, Vienna and into Salzburg where we spent New Year.

As you might know, our theme for weekends in 2015 is to do something each weekend starting with a letter of the alphabet, from A to Z and back again.

Alter Peter, Munich. Photo: metaljar

Alter Peter, Munich.
Photo: metaljar

Munich. M… no good, nor is G for Germany, (B)eer, (H)ofbrouhous, (W)alking or (S)ightseeing.

However, a significant church in Munich’s Old Town (Aldstat) is St Peter’s Church with a tower affectionately referred to as Alter Peter (Old Peter). It’s the oldest church in the district, and a church has been on this site since the 8th Century.

We payed our 2€ and climbed the couple of hundred stairs to the top of the 91 metre high tower and were rewarded with fantastic views across Munich’s skyline.

image

View from Alter Peter Photo: metaljar

I just love the way so many of Europe’s skylines are so different to Australia’s in that they are pretty much devoid of sky scrapers and the way the Old Towns are preserved as areas without towers.

image

View from Alter Peter Photo: metaljar

A great start to our year of the alphabet 🙂

had our last breakfast in Sydney for the year

Posted: December 8, 2014 in Cafe
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in Ryde Park at The Groundskeeper Cafe.IMG_2424

Can highly recommend this place. Delicious Middle Eastern inspired food, great location in the middle of the park, playground nearby.

Just great.

had breakfast at Balmain.

Posted: November 24, 2014 in Cafe, Walking
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1oWith just two weeks to go before we will be in Germany, we went to the Cafe Berlin in Balmain, just down from the Unity Hall Hotel.

We beat the Sunday morning heat with an early start and enjoyed breakfast and coffee on the footpath, watching the world go by.

Afterwards, we went for a wander around the block that encloses Balmain Hospital… a real mix of old and new, dilapidated and renovated, loved and let go.

If this is a typical German breakfast, I’m going to need to buy a whole new wardrobe when we get home… I didn’t take quite the healthy option I could have!

Finished!

Posted: November 17, 2014 in Cafe, Walking
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15 November, 2015… we’ve made it to Gunamatta Bay in Cronulla.

With only a few weekends left before we leave for holidays, we finished our year long walk from Sydney’s northern most beach to the southern most, and all the bays and beaches and everything in between. Has been a lot of fun. From warm and beautiful through to hot and sweaty, wet, cold and miserable, a couple of hundred swims, a couple of hundred kms, discovering suburbs and beaches and parts of Sydney we never knew existed. And to finish ogling at waterfront houses along Gunamatta Bay and a lovely breakfast at The Nuns’ Pool and great coffee in Cronulla was a great way to finish.

I didn’t think to record this trip using a blog; sadly, I just recorded each week through facebook.

Suffice to say we had a great time. Notable weekends included:

  • Seeing the two houses of our dreams…
  • the walk around Long Reef golf course down to Dee Why
  • the beautiful walk around the point south of Dee Why
  • the nicest rock pool of the year at Fairlight at the back of Manly
  • breakfast at Ripples Cafe at Chowder Bay (and that whole area around Clifton Gardens)
  • the walk around Cremorne Point – what a beautiful secret place that is!
  • Rose Bay to Vaucluse Bay – a beautiful forshore walk
  • the beatiful job they’ve done at The Gap
  • tripping over Kurnell – a suburb much of which feels like it’s trapped in the 60’s
  • discovering that 5kms from a major Sydney beach, you have to be wary of 4WDs on the beach!
    and finally
  • how beautiful is The Esplanade walk from Cronulla, past beautiful Shelly Park, around the point down to Gunnamatta Bay.

A cracker of a year!

See the Walking 2014 album from flickr here

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