In which Layla and Roz go on amazing walks and want to live in Sydney

By Layla

On Thursday morning, after some coffee (Roz) / giant chocolate drink (me on my ongoing but ultimately doomed quest for the ice chocolate drink of my youth), we took the bus to the famous Bondi Beach and started off in fine style with lunch at the Bondi branch of Bill’s – completely delicious! Then we headed off to one of Sydney’s most famous walks, the cliffside path from Bondi to Coogee beach. Again, the scenery over the harbour was absolutely glorious with brilliant blue sparkling water, and some chilly surfers to watch. Sadly parts of the path had been wrecked by a huge storm a month ago, but with a few diversions, we made along the beautiful path to Coogee beach and a bus home.  

We had a speedy dinner at home that night, and then walked into town, our destination: the Museum of Australia. Since moving to Tokyo, we have been missing lovely evening events at museums, so were delighted that there was a special event about explorers that night, featuring the first woman to fly around the world. The event was attached to an exhibition about Australia’s top 50 explorers. We were very much entertained by a little climbing wall in the exhibition, which went well with the wine they provided for us… but otherwise the exhibition was quite rubbish. So we were intrigued it had won the award for the best-curated exhibition of the year in Australia! Undeterred, we proceeded to the theatre and enjoyed the pilot (whose name I am ashamed to say I forget) telling us about her adventure. It didn’t make me wish I was a solo pilot, quite frankly… but it was a nice evening and inspiring. But lacking in cocktails, so when it finished, we found ourselves in Pocket Bar, a completely delightful little bar with great drinks and a lot of cheese, all of which we duly consumed. Hooray.

The following day Roz went to another yoga class and did some Japanese homework while I got on a train heading deep into the suburbs of Sydney to meet up with my Dad’s cousin and visit my 93 year old great aunt, who moved to Sydney from Scotland as a teenager as a cure for her asthma (apparently this prescription was ineffective, but she stayed anyway). After that expedition was successfully completed, Roz and I reconvened for lunch at a delightful local cafe, then walked through Pott’s Point to the New South Wales Museum of Art. We were enjoying the art well enough til Roz unexpectedly received an email that brought into question the house in which we are going to live from September… and we spent the next few hours walking around the Botanic Gardens and discussing this development at great and tedious length, punctuated by a lovely period of lying on the grass reading, and a stroll to Mrs Macquarrie’s chair, a look out point over the water. So many beautiful walks in this city!

As darkness approached, we retired to one of my new favourite places in Sydney, Our Golden Age cinema. This delight of a venue has a really beautiful vintage-feeling cocktail bar (where we duly indulged), and a cute little cinema that shows obscure type films. The film on that evening was Midnight Special, a sci fi film that inexplicably got good reviews. It was in fact not at all good, but we both loved the cinema so much that we didn’t really mind. Afterwards we walked to Dead Ringers restaurant for rather excellently done tapas and a few drinks before bed.

Saturday was the start of Roz’s birthday weekend. We decided to embark on a less-famous Sydney waterside walk/hike, Taronga Zoo to Balmoral Beach. I’d feared it might be less nice than the previous two walks, but it turned out to be the loveliest of all, and we very much recommend it. We took a ferry across the sparkling, beautiful harbour and got out just by the zoo. From there, a hiking path took us along foresty paths right by the water. Partway along, we stopped for a tasty sandwich lunch and to delight in a marriage proposal being written in the sky by a little aeroplane: “Marry Me Vivi?”. Charming. A bit further, and we eventually found ourselves on pretty Balmoral Beach eating a strawberry muffin and reading our books in an exceptionally scenic location.

When we got back into town, Roz was suddenly inspired: why not go up Sydney tower and have cocktails in their revolving bar? Why not indeed! Up we went and sure enough, enjoyed cocktails as the bar slowly rotated, giving us 360 degree views of the harbour and city as night fell. Afterwards, we walked to another cocktail bar, this time the award-winning Eau de Vie in Kings Cross. The cocktails were amazing. I liked that my ‘aviator’ cocktail came topped with a giant pink candy floss ‘cloud’, with a tiny paper aeroplane perched on top. Hilarious - and ridiculously hipster. We loved it. We crossed the road to Govinda’s a famous Indian buffet restaurant attached to a cinema. We’d planned to see a film after dinner, but the dinner wasn’t very nice so rather than linger, we cut our losses and walked instead to the cinema next to our apartment, and saw God Willing, a funny, charming Italian film instead. And enjoyed the Australian tradition of eating ‘choco-tops’ (ice cream cones where the ice cream is coated in a layer of chocolate) during the film.

Sunday was Roz’s birthday, but no long lie for her! After a quick opening of presents, we were off on the train to the Blue Mountains for a scenic day trip. When I was about seventeen, my family came on a trip to Sydney and drove to the Blue Mountains. It was a horrible grey, drizzly, chilly day and there was so much fog that when we got to the lookout point, we could see absolutely nothing. So I had been rather anti-Blue Mountains on this trip. But Roz persuaded me and it was a fabulous day. We had a nice vegetarian lunch in Up Beet, then walked to Echo Point from which we had a lovely clear view of the mountains (in stark contrast to my previous experience). After that we climbed down nearly 1000 steps (was glad when we got to the bottom of that!), did a lovely hour and a half of foresty, waterfall-pocked hiking along the valley floor, and then ascended on what is apparently the steepest railway in the world. As we set off on the railway, I commented that I couldn’t see what the fuss was about – and then suddenly it felt as thought we were going up vertically, and it was all very exciting!

We got home about 6:30pm – just enough time to pack our bags, and walk the 20 minutes to a famous vegetarian restaurant, Yellow, for Roz’s birthday dinner. The restaurant was exciting and delicious, and we revelled in the novelty of being able to ask complicated questions about the menu in a language we could understand!

But not for long… All good things must come to an end. Roz blew out her birthday dessert candle, and we reluctantly walked home to bed. Up before the crack of dawn today, I’m now writing this from the plane as we head home to Tokyo. But I fear we are leaving our hearts in Sydney.  Maybe time to develop asthma and try Great-Aunt Mary’s prescription…

Books we read on holiday

Roz

A Town Like Alice (Nevil Shute), The Far Country (Nevil Shute), The Buddha of Suburbia (Hanif Kuresishi) and The Last Painting of Sarah de Vos (Dominic Smith). Plus good progress on Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy) and Landfalls (Naomi Williams).

Layla

The Mandibles (Lionel Shriver), A Town Like Alice (Nevil Shute), and good progress into Landfills (Naomi Williams). And a lot of Facebook articles about Brexit…