On Thursday morning (Jan 17), we left the Blue Mountains, and headed across to the other side of Sydney to see Bondi, before beginning to head south.
Allow me to just interject here. Now and then when you’re away from your homeland, you see something you’re totally not expecting to see. For example, the first time I was in California (1999), I spotted a car near where we were parked, with the license plate, ‘MAN UTD’. £50,000 probably wouldn’t buy you that plate in the UK. But in California, there are probably only a handful of people (comparatively) who would care for such a plate. You don’t expect to see a Manchester United plate thousands of miles from Manchester.
Well, I had a similar experience on our journey driving to Bondi from the Blue Mountains (sorry, if you’re not from Northern Ireland it’ll probably not mean anything to you).
Getting back to the update. Once again, the drive through Sydney wasn’t without its problems. I hate to labour this point, because I like Sydney. Driving through it has been one of the most infuriating experiences of my life. However, I would think it has to be experienced to be fully understood.
Eventually, we made it to Bondi, where we decided to go shopping for a while in the huge shopping centre at Bondi Junction (we had fun trying to find a car park with enough headroom to allow the campervan to get in).
The weather was dismal, so after dinner, and a walk around, we decided to just park at the side of the road, and hope for a better day on Friday, so we could enjoy Bondi in its full ‘glamour’. Sadly, we were to be disappointed with the weather once again, as Friday morning was as dull as ever, and showed no sign of brightening up.
Thoughts on Bondi…
To be honest, I think Bondi is like Oz meets Beverly Hills. It’s typically Aussie, with its heaps of surf shops. However, it has a few crazy elements (well, more like crazy people). For instance, the place seems to be a hive for the ‘lady of leisure’ type. These ladies go for coffee at 7.30am with their dog, or they meet up on the beachfront with their personal trainer (and if you have a dog, it comes with you).
We also saw two ladies walking about eight dogs, either training them, or looking after them; and it was near Bondi where we spotted a van advertising a pet cremation service. Like I said, interesting.
We ended up leaving about 9.30am on Friday morning, not willing to waste time waiting for some sunshine. In fact, on Friday it poured. I mean, it’s mid-January in Australia, and we get rain… lots of it. For that reason, the journey south from Bondi to Bateman’s Bay (on the Princes Highway) just wasn’t as pleasant as it could have been, and we didn’t bother to go via the coastal drive at Wollongong.