Having a Senior Moment in Sydney (Day 137)
Oh dear, is the sun getting to us? We seem to be having a couple of senior moments whilst in Sydney. Perhaps we are relaxing too much!
We popped round to Lyn, our hosts’ neighbour. Her great grandson is collecting cans and bottles for charity and gets 10c per item. Jane and Debs have been saving a few and we’ve been adding to the pile. It was getting rather full so time to pop round.
Lyn is a very jolly lady, has a huge laugh and doesn’t seem to take life too seriously. He son John and his wife was there and they welcomed us with open arms. We chatted about various subjects; Lyn sadly lost her husband a few months back, so they were talking about all the stuff she is sorting through, including old photo slides. John said “It’s not worth looking back in the past, you only get a crook in the neck”. Wise words indeed and we did have a giggle.
We got ourselves ready, packed our swimwear and towels and headed off east to St Ives. One of Tim’s workmates Paul from a previous job a few years back is over here with his wife and kids and staying with friends. (We told Lyn where we were going “Very posh” she remarked). He saw that we were arriving in Sydney last week via Facebook and got in touch. We drove the 36km there, passing lots of names we see in the UK: Epping, Kings Langley, Richmond, Windsor. Finally arrived but we couldn’t find the number 80. We stopped and asked a neighbour, no – he didn’t know where number 80 was either. We drove up and down and then messaged Paul. No response. We sat for quite a few moments, it was strange that Paul wasn’t responding. Something was in the back on my mine. I asked Tim to check the arrangements. Argh! We’re supposed to meet tomorrow! Doh! Well, at least we now know that the address is incorrect (found out it is no. 83).
Well, we might as well carry on and go to the beach. On the way we stopped off at a nice restaurant, Tim was getting a bit peckish, and had a delicious meal, and then onto Collaroy beach. From Google Maps, the beach looked sandy and it was. We walked along and watched a few guys’ kitesurfing. One was struggling to get going for a time. As well as holding on to the kite ensuring it didn’t flip and hit someone, he had to get his feet into his kiteboard. After a few attempts, he managed it, laid down in the surf and away he went, riding the waves, gliding over some and others were like ramps that he zoomed up and then flipped high in the air. It did look like such fun.
After struggled to get his swimming trunks on, Tim had a paddle in the surf, I sat people and surf watching – we both had fun in our own ways. After a while we wandered down the beach. Similar to the Gold Coast, the beach was clean and flat with amazing waves. The sand here was slightly more coarse and more of a mustard colour. Wonderful though.
Time to get back to the car. Whoops! Another senior moment – we couldn’t find it. I was sure it was further along the beach. There was a large building and I couldn’t remember walking past this when we arrived. Finally we had to check out Google maps to work out where we had left the car! Let’s hope tomorrow we are back on track!
