Wollongong & Bondi - 3-6 October

My computer is finally out of the shop, after $118 AUD and a new track pad - ugh - and I am able to update you on my adventures the past three weekends! On the first weekend of October, there was a public holiday on Monday, and I think that I spent it well! On the Friday, Lisa (another au pair friend in my suburb) and I headed out to Wollongong, which is a coastal city about an hour south of Sydney. We had originally planned to stay in Wollongong for both Friday and Saturday night, at the recommendation of Lisa's host parents, but the hostel was booked out for Saturday night so we decided to continue our trip north to Bondi Beach for Saturday night and Sunday beach time.

The Wollongong YHA was quite interesting. Apparently, it is housing comprised of hotel rooms, YHA rooms, and also university dorms. Although it was clean and decent, per the YHA standard, it was not the typical hostel, and our company included older men and women as well as families of all ages...there was not the social atmosphere I had come to expect from my first YHA stay in Melbourne. We stayed there only one night, and in the morning, we decided to take our time driving the trip to Sydney and to take the scenic Grand Pacific Drive rather than the inland highway. In trying to find the start of the Grand Pacific Drive, however, we stumbled upon Killalea Beach. The car park was crowded with surfers so we parked further back from the beach to enjoy stunning views, including rugged cliffs, shimmering aqua water as far as the eye could see, and dolphins! We even saw a very large dolphin leap into the air from the water several times. It was beautiful, and I appreciated so much the opportunity to be in Australia, amidst so much natural beauty.

From Killalea Beach, we continued north, following the signs with the Grand Pacific Drive logo. The Grand Pacific Drive traverses 17 patrolled beaches and passes through the Royal National Park before ending just outside the Sydney city limits. The drive curved and twisted along the coast, through rain forests and mountains, along jagged cliffs, and was an amazing road trip to embark on.

Sea Cliff Bridge, linking Coalcliff and Clifton, NSW

The red flowers are waratahs, a state emblem of NSW

Gorgeous rainforest in the Royal National Park, the second oldest national park in the world

We arrived at the Bondi Beach YHA close to 4 p.m. and dropped our things off, changed into swimsuits and headed to Tamarama Beach, which was directly behind our hostel. There were a few hours left of sunlight before it got too cold to stay out, and we walked toward Bondi Beach to check out the shops and restaurants. For dinner that night, I tried a Bite Box Portugese chicken burger then Lisa cooked some pasta back at the hostel. The atmosphere at this hostel was much more social and had a much younger crowd. There were lots of surfers and beachy types, being just blocks from stunning coastline. We met some other German guys cooking in the hostel kitchen, and our 8-bed dorm room was shared with two British guys on Working Holiday visas, one Italian girl and her boyfriend who were servers at a local restaurant, one Dutch surfing instructor, and one very, very strange man who was seen by Lisa and several others in our room shooting drugs via a needle at 2 a.m. Luckily for us, there were lots of friendly guys in our room, and I slept right through the needle incident so we checked out before seeing the strange roommate again.

Tamarama Beach

View from the Bondi YHA roof

I am amazed by the view from hostel rooftops.

At Bondi Beach, we set up our spot with towels at 10 a.m. The rules at Bondi and other patrolled beaches in Australia is that swimming is only permitted "between the flags." Sections safe for swimming (weaker currents etc.) are marked between two yellow and red flags. These areas quickly become packed with families, so Lisa and I chose a relatively deserted area of sand in the no-swimming section to avoid the crowds. Before long, it didn't matter. Bondi Beach is one of the most famous in the world and on a Sunday of a holiday weekend, it was packed. I was amazed by all of the accents I heard there. At least every other person, possibly more, was speaking a language other than English. Tourists (us included) abounded with "I <3 Australia" t-shirts and cameras out. With the strong Australian sun, it was necessary to apply SPF 50 sunscreen all over our bodies to avoid a bad burn. It was so weird for me to use so much sunscreen, coming from the States where I maybe put SPF 8 on my shoulder and SPF 15 on my face IF I use it at all. But here, I don't want to mess around with the lack of ozone layer and really mess up my skin.

A little after noon, Lisa and I got delicioius gelato from Gelatissimo, and then Al met us at the beach! We lounged around the rest of the day, people-watching and chatting. Al and I got in the water at one point, and the spring Pacific water was frigid! Helicopters flew over constantly, which Lisa and Al told me was to scan for sharks; if one had been spotted, sirens would have gone off - Al has seen it before although he doesn't remember any attacks occurring at Bondi.

That evening, I took Lisa to the bus station for a bus back to Canberra, then I headed to Al's to spend Sunday night and my Monday off work. We enjoyed take-out Thai and some Little Creatures pale ale for dinner Sunday night while watching the NRL (National Rugby League...different from rugby union, which Al plays) Grand Final.

On Monday, Al surprised me with tickets to go to the Sydney Tower Eye observation deck in the heart of downtown Sydney. From the top of the tower, we could see panoramic views of the city, and each side was labeled with landmarks that could be seen from that window. It was beautiful and we had a clear, sunny day with great visibility! After a few errands in the city, we went back to Al's, where I cooked dinner for him and his younger sister, Shara. I love cooking for my host family on Wednesday nights but miss cooking as much as I was able to in college, so I'd offered to cook and picked a red curry recipe to try that called for chicken (Actually, it called for tofu but I offered to change it to chicken for Al; he preferred that option :p), fresh pumpkin, onions, red capsicum, broccoli, carrots, peanuts, and Thai basil. It was delicious and a perfect amount of spiciness - leaning towards spicier rather than mild! I will definitely be cooking it again and look forward to trying tofu in the recipe as well.

Beautiful Darling Harbour

Hyde Park, and the ANZAC Memorial

You can barely see the Harbour Bridge and Opera House on the other side of the buildings!

My new favorite curry recipe

I drove back to Canberra after dinner and prepared a few ideas of activities to do with the kids for week 2 of the September school holidays. Of the many ways I am blessed, I feel especially grateful to have the use of a car here in Australia. I absolutely love driving and road trips (obviously because you can pack as much as you want, no restrictions ;p) and although many other au pairs have access to a car for use with their kids, there are very few who are permitted to use the car outside of au pair purposes, for personal use in evenings and on weekends. However, being able to drive myself (and also other au pairs) on trips and to various places I want to visit in Canberra and NSW is such a gift!

Coming up next: TASMANIA!!

~
Alli