Saturday, November 12, 2016

Belated Sydney 2

Our sisters and spouses reunion weekend in Sydney started on Thursday 27th October with the arrival of Ros and Pete in Coogee and some indications of wild and windy weather. We decided to risk our coast walk to see Sculpture By The Sea that afternoon despite the darkening skies.

Here we have Robert Redford, Sam Neill and John Farnham sitting by Bronte Beach as the rain clouds gather (family joke that one - Rob has occasionally been likened to RR, ditto Rod with SN and Pete with JF - LOL).
A freak king tide and storm surge had done some serious damage to sculptures on Tamarama Beach earlier in the week. The remaining pieces had to be moved and re-anchored in the sand!

 This was fascinating to watch as the winds gained momentum.
 A great use for the ubiquitous rubber thong....

By the time we got to the rocky cliffs between Tamarama and Bondi it was blowing a gale and starting to rain - not very pleasant for taking the time needed to see the works properly.
It was really too wet for my camera at this point - but I took this pic anyway - and (much later) enjoyed matching the colour of the grey rainy sky with the tints and shades of blue on this monochrome colour wheel.
 And for a complete change - some intense RED.


Cold and wet by now we ended our first day at our usual food spot at Sabbaba in Hall St for Israeli street food and beer. We enjoyed a Gelati Messina icecream after wards and one of the people in the queue remarked on Rob's resemblance to Robert Redford - causing much hilarity (between us).

On Friday the sisters spent the day together in the city while the boys met up with Judy and Jurgen for a day at Balmoral Beach and Chinaman's Beach (a first for Judy and Jurgen).
We all met up on Friday night for drinks at The Cookhouse (and some live music) at Randwick and then dinner at our fave Barzura's on Coogee Beach.

The next morning all ten of us (Fiona and James had arrived from Melbourne, late the night before) met up for breakfast at Seasalt at Clovelly Beach. It was so great to see everyone - especially on this perfect Spring morning in this beautiful part of the world.
While others in the group walked to Sculptures By the Sea the sisters and spouses spent the rest of the day around The Rocks, Sydney Observatory, the SH Ervin Gallery and Barangaroo. 

The jacarandas in Sydney were looking spectacular this weekend (always at year 12 and Uni exam time).


We met up with the others in the group early that evening at Home Thai in Sussex Street - another great Sydney eatery (thank you Thomas and Phoebe).

Sunday dawned cloudy and windy again..but not enough to threaten our planned ferry ride to Manly - early afternoon drinks at the Four Pines Brewing Company....

and lunch after wards at Crinite's...

By now we had heard the very sad news about dear old Mum so the reunion weekend ended up quite a momentous and emotional one this year. Ros and Pete dropped all their plans and came back to Canberra with us (although Pete had to do it via a quick trip back to Coffs).

I drove back with Ros - we took a few minutes on the way back to capture this very rare sighting of some water in "Lake George" - a sight we haven't seen for around 30 years - before facing the week ahead of us.........

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