Posts Tagged ‘weekend’

Week 10 ~ J is for Joy Ride

Posted: March 8, 2015 in Sydney Harbour
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

A beautiful, sunny Saturday morning – a great day to do that H for Helicopter Joy Flight we put off a few weeks ago because of the weather.

John from Heliscenic at Bankstown was our pilot – friend of a friend who gave us a great rate (Thank you Di Lewis!!)

WHAT A BLAST! Your wedding or birth of your kids is meant to be the best 90 minutes of your life…? NOT ANY MORE!

We retraced our 2014 year of walking the beaches and harbour.

We flew from Bankstown, over Parramatta, Pennant Hills, Hornsby and the F3/M1 to Lion Island and Barrenjoey,
then down the coast to Cronuilla, back up the coast to the Heads, then
straight down Sydney Harbour, over the Harbour Bridge down to Rhodes than back to Bankstown.

Absolutely sensational!

Thanks John Rappell. 0411 234 164

Presuming no one wants to actually watch a GoPro video of the 90 odd minutes in normal time, I’ve uploaded 4x normal speed and 8x normal speed videos.

All the images uploaded to flickr

Image: metaljar

Image: metaljar

P1050426

Home and Away. Image: metaljar

Image: metaljar

Well snapped, Robyn! Image: metaljar

P1050428

Our favourite 3 or 4 houses from our walk last year; on the Bilgola Bends. Image: metaljar

P1050431

Warriewood / Narrabeen Image: metaljar

P1050442

South Head Image: metaljar

P1050454

Looking over Dover Heights to the city. Image: metaljar

Week 9 ~ I is for ice-cream

Posted: March 1, 2015 in Cafe, Inner West
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

After a fabulous wedding where Nic and Jo said “I do” we needed to head over to Erskinville to pick up a car that was left there in The Great Clear Family Wedding Car Shuffle. We made our way there, during Sydney’s terrific first day of autumn afternoon downpour, via Enmore for some Ice cream.

There’s so many great Gelato cafes through the inner west, including a previous favourite, n2 extreme gelato  Check it out – very cool how they just add liquid nitrogen to a liquid mix and create instant ice cream. We didn’t go there, however… time for something new 🙂 Across the road from the iconic Enmore Theatre in King St is Cow and Moon, purveyors of THE BEST ICE CREAM IN SYDNEY. Yep, big claim, so check this link.

Image: metaljar

Image: metaljar

A great range of amazing flavours. $6.50 for a medium cup with 3 flavours… that’ll do! Cointreau, Hazelnut Roche, Afogato, Banana and Salted Caramel, Apple Lemon and Blood Orange Sorbet, Popcorn, Pistachio, Coconut and Hazelnut Roche, Hazelnut and Italian Nougat, Jaffa, traditional Lemon Sorbet, Mixed Berry and Chocolate Sorbet… bloody good!

Image: metaljar

Image: metaljar

We wandered along Enmore Road while we ate, and washed our sticky hands under the dripping downpipe of the Enmore.

Image: metaljar

Image: metaljar

So, on to J… no real thoughts at the moment!

Week 8 ~ H for Haberfield

Posted: February 22, 2015 in Cafe, Sydney Harbour
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

A workmate of Robyn’s knows a helicopter pilot.
Through her, John from HeliScenic helicopter tours out of Bankstown Airport had offered us a great deal on a flight over the beaches, from Palm Beach in the north down to Cronulla, following the walk along the coast we did last year.
What a great week H!

Until John rang early Saturday morning as we were heading out to Bankstown, advising us that the low cloud meant we wouldn’t have the best experience and that we should postpone. Spending a small fortune for anything less than 100%… pretty easy decision… we postponed.

While sitting at a cafe in Eastwood having a coffee, a few suggestions from friends included

  • a trip to Hurstville
  • a visit to Palm beach to see the set of Home and Away (noice work, Mark Williamson!)
  • High tea
  • Haberfield
  • Hazelbrook
  • Hogwarts
  • Hang gliding or Hover crafting on the Hawkesbury
Photo: metaljar

Photo: metaljar

UTS Rowers has rebuilt the clubhouse at Haberfield, so we headed over there on Sunday morning for breakfast.

A pretty limited menu in a venue that is so obviously run by people who run a club, not a cafe or restaurant!
Here’s a few tips for the good folks at UTS Rowers Club…

  1. When you enter and sign in, offer a coffee when you stand there, point and say “Sit anywhere you want.:
  2. Approach said people sitting there and tell them the reason you are being completely ignored is because you need to order from the bar.
  3. Offer a menu! (“They’re at the bar. Help yourself”)
  4. Offer a bottle of water. (“At the bar. Help yourself”)
  5. Just because I’m wearing a fetching pink polo shirt, ha e a look before walking up to the table and declaring “Hello ladies. Everything all right?”

A great deck to sit, eat, drink and watch the world go by, but we won’t be hurrying back. There’s better value and experiences all over the inner west.

Photo: metaljar

Photo: metaljar

IMG_3739

Week 6 ~ F is for Ferry

Posted: February 8, 2015 in Sydney Harbour
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

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
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

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 2 ~ B is for Bahn

Posted: January 21, 2015 in Transport
Tags: , , , , ,
1
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
Tags: , , , , ,
0

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 🙂

Newer Entries