Friday January 14th

As predicted, the day began at 615 am with the kids running laps around upstairs and making an appearance in our room downstairs so they could play with their cousins that they hadn’t seen in two weeks. It was going to be a long day.

We had aspirations of going to the infamous Bondi Beach today – now we weren’t so sure. After doing some house cleaning and several loads of laundry, we decided to be brave and tackle the traffic of Sydney on a busy Friday and go check out the beach. We packed a lunch and some towels and headed out after 9 with Sienna in tow. Melissa was kind enough to lend us her Tom-tom navigational system which was programmed to get us there.

As we headed up north, we were familiar with how to get to the airport having been there several times already, but once beyond that, things got a little busier than we thought.  We made a couple wrong turns and had to get back on track but we reached Bondi and eventually found the ocean looming on the horizon. As we approached the beach from the hills, it was quite a spectacle to behold.

The beach had several thousand people on it already and the waves crashing on the beach were huge compared to all the beaches we had been on in the last month. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it was well into the plus 30’s by the time we arrived at 10 am.  We parked in the pay lot as we had three kids and tons of stuff to carry. It cost $6 an hour so we weren’t staying all day that was for sure.

We found a spot on the beach between the flags where there was lifeguard supervision and the kids quickly headed out to the water. The ocean was more alive than we had ever experienced and the waves bowled the kids over repetitively. They came in for a break and we fed them some sandwiches and juice to replenish them.

There were many interesting sights on the beach today – most especially a dozen or so girls who felt liberated enough to tan completely topless. This was a surprise to all of us as there were so many families on the beach and thought they were being a bit too brave-but needless to say, all the boys were giggling at our first experience of being around girls with ‘no booby patches on’ as Jacob would put it.

I decided to go for a swim and check out the waves. The water was a bit chillier than we had experienced when we were in New Zealand despite Sydney being much closer to the equator. Even at 20 or so degrees, once you got used to it the water was just fine. I went and grabbed the boogie board and decided to try it out on the waves as they were absolutely massive. People were surfing in some areas, boogie boarding in others and just body surfing everywhere. It is always a bit tricky as you can get run over by others as well as run people over yourself with the intensity of the waves.

My first few waves were good for 20m or so – but I caught a couple that took me almost 100m from way out in the ocean almost all the way to the shore. The waves were normally 4-6 feet in height but once in a while you would get two 20ft ones back to back that scared the daylights out of everyone. It was like a bunch of little ones followed by two tsunami waves and then calm for a minute before the next ones would come. The ocean being alive and full of sand and salt is relentless on the weak swimmers and many were sent bowled over coughing and full of sand.

After twenty minutes, I had to take a break as my body had been battered around enough for one day. The kids were starting to melt, so we took them for an ice cream and called it a day after three hours and $18 worth of parking. The walk back to the car was extremely scenic and there were well over 5000 people on the beach now. It was quite a sight to see.

We drove ten minutes away and stopped at a mall to see what a big city shopping centre looked like. There were 6 levels and more escalators than you can count as we combed our way through for an hour checking out the shops. This place made Southcentre look like a convenience store. We picked up a couple items and headed back to the car and started to make our way home. The Tom-tom guided us perfectly this time with no booboos as we arrived around 3pm. One of the most fascinating things on our trip is that for 90% of the time, wherever we have driven, there has always been an ocean or extremely large body of water out one window – very different from any trip we have ever been on.

We all jumped in the pool and had a nice refreshing swim for an hour. After a quick shower, it was apparent that a complete lack of sunscreen was not such a brilliant idea as my chest was completely on fire! Biggest lobster tan of all time was going to provide for an interesting attempt at sleep later tonight. Melissa got ready for a night out with Devin as they were off to the Women’s Tennis final in Sydney and Krista and I were going to watch the kids. Krista drove Mel to the train station and I kept them entertained for a while.

After spaghetti and meat sauce, the kids played for a bit while we had some bbq chicken and salad. We settled in for some games and a TMNT movie. We put the kids to bed around 830 but they milled about for quite a while with it being so warm in the basement. I did some reading of some texts and started a couple papers I had to write for Sunday as after 18 hours on airplanes, I don’t imagine im going to come up with much brilliance to share with my professor. Better get something done before then.
It was a great day of sun and sand – sadly it will all come to an end in 36 hours.