Holiday hoo-ha

WARNING: What follows is a tediously detailed account of our holidays, but I really don't feel like editing it now.

After two weeks holiday in New South Wales (that's the state where Sydney is and home to 6.6 million of Australia's 20+ million people, and two weeks back in Katherine, I'm back blogging.

During our two-and-a-half days in Sydney, we walked along the coast from Bondi Beach, past Bronte Beach to Coogee Beach. There were people sunbathing, swimming and surfing, but we were still in our NT mode and found the wind quite chilling.

Next we took the train up to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. Katoomba and the nearby village of Leura reminded us a little of some Sonoma County towns--cute houses with lovely gardens, touristy boutiques, lots of cafes with sidewalk seating, bakeries with yummy organic sourdough bread.... During our three days there, we also did some walking, visiting the famous Three Sisters, descending the Giant Staircase, etc.

We spent another three days at the Hawksbury Heights YHA, also in the Blue Mountains, but not actually in (or within walking distance) or a town or village.

Next we took a train back down to Sydney, then on up the coast to Newcastle, where Sophie met us. We pretty much stopped taking pictures at this point because we were so busy hanging out and talking that getting out the camera seemed like too much trouble.

Anyhow, we went to the beach in Newcastle with S and A, then drove up to Tahree and stayed at S's mother's house, a cute homey home with flowers in front and a white picket fence and a garden in back and cows in the fields behind. The next day we drove up to Elands, where we installed ourselves at Sophie's dad's house, a great rambling continuously-work-in-progress house where all the walls are covered with full bookcases.

A small river flowed just behind the house where we swam several times a day. In fact our days seemed to consist of eating, swimming, visiting, reading and sleeping. We gathered, separated and reconvened with various groups of Elanders (Elandians?). We saw a diamond-back python, curled up in the grass next to the river, an eel almost under my feet in the river, a deer jumping in front of the car as we pulled into the driveway, lots of birds.

Next we spent a day in Newcastle (just me and J), where we went to the beach, walked around the city, and ate good restaurant food. Then we hopped back on a train and went further back down what is called the "central coast" to the childhood home of our friend Waz who, along with partner Pas, was visiting his folks for the holidays (we know them from up here).

They took us to a lovely beach, Bateau Bay (sp?), where we walked around a great intertidal zone and saw lots of little sea critters. Then we walked along a kind of high promontory just as the sun had set. It was beautiful and really quite different flora-wise from anything else we'd seen.

For new year's eve, Waz's mom prepared dinner which we ate on their verandah overlooking the garden. Then we (W,P, J and I) watched most of Tank Girl, which kept us awake just past midnight, an important achievement, as we were all quite tired.

Back to Sydney on the 1st, where all the Sydneysiders were melting because it was 44 degrees Celsius (something like 109 or 111 F), we stashed our luggage, ate a final city meal, walked around a bit before heading back to Darwin.