Kay and Edwin left for Sydney a week earlier than Jonathan and Merinda. (J and M by themselves had fun the week before they departed for Sydney.) The main reason for a trip at this time was Denis's 80th birthday on the 23rd of July, but Sydney's current winter climate made it a wonderful time for a holiday.
We based ourselves at Denis's house in Cronulla, a southern beach suburb of Sydney with a cafe lifestyle and one that is serviced by a cute branch line from the main southbound commuter rail line, the "Illawarra Line". Cronulla station, shown at the bottom of this map, is situated at the narrowest part of the Cronulla isthmus, the tip of which is off the map at left, to the south.
Denis's house is a short distance from Wanda Beach, part of the Cronulla beach group. You can see the small 'house' symbol at the top of the map.
Kay's high school was less than 100m north of her house, and
the convenience and surf lifestyle, plus a handy rail line
that could put you in the heart of the city in 50 minutes
must have made for a wonderful upbringing. Denis worked
in an industrial center a couple of kilometres out along
another isthsmus to the north of this map.
This is a photograph provided through the technological wonder that was Keyhole.com, now http://earth.google.com/.
Comparing this with the map above, you will see that Denis lives right at the top of the photo, and the train station is on the thin part of the isthmus about in the middle of the photo. The white patches in the plaza area are the awnings and umbrellas of the cafes, and the roofs of shops. You can see the boats moored to the lee side of the isthmus, and the sand bar below.
For reasons unclear, the right hand strip of the image is
fuzzy... apparently not worth storing in the database in detail.
On the first day, Edwin and Kay took in the sun and surf on Wanda beach. Edwin fell in the surf, so Kay just pulled off his clothes and left him to run about in his undies; it was about 27C, 80F, so not cold as one might expect for winter. The view below is from the north-east corner of the above map, looking south.
Edwin and Denis went whale watching.
Kay and Edwin went to visit Warwick, and Edwin got to ride commuter train, tram (light rail) and the monorail.
In Canberra, there were science museums and, of course, trains.
Dum haec geruntur (as Julius Caesar was apt to say as a segway) Jonathan and Merinda arrived in Cronulla. Again the beach was an early destination.
After a day with Denis, Jonathan and Merinda headed out to see Warwick and Andrew, planning to return in two days time to meet up with Kay and Edwin at the Cronulla base. After some initial shopping and looking at the big-city architecture, they dined with Andrew in his work building. There had clearly also been a visit to a bank, hence the piggy bank.
There was some shopping for the coat and hat Merinda wanted, but not yet
with much success. We even tried Paddy's markets-via-monorail, where Merinda
found and talked me into buying a hat that you will see proved to be a superb choice.
We finally made it to Warwick's place. The area has superb city views.
The University of Sydney "district", meaning Newtown and Glebe (subsuming Forest Lodge) with a dash of Chippendale and a twist of Camperdown, lies between the train line running from Redfern to Macdonaldtown to Newtown, and the light rail with a station in Glebe and one in Jubilee park. This is the area I was interested in revisiting. Here is Glebe, across from the fish markets, again courtesy of GoogleEarth.
The light rail station servicing Glebe is just off the picture to the
south. You begin to get the idea of how far my brave little 6-year-old
companion walked! We even managed to tour these Glebe foreshores
on one walk.
The next day Merinda went off with Amelia, and I went off with Warwick. We walked Newtown, and amongst other things we passed Wesley College on the university campus, and then by my old apartment in Chelmsford Street. Here I stand, in the same position as a photograph taken circa 1978, on the front lawn of Wesley College. In that 1978 photo I stood with my HP45 on my hip, and a large "Hewlett-Packard" sign under my hand. A copy of that photo adorns my office at HP... sorry, Agilent.
Here you see me in the park across the road from the apartment in Chelmsford Street, with me standing in it. See the blue path? Makes it easy to see this park and pick our block on GoogleEarth!
That evening we met Merinda at Andrew's flat and ate at Linda's, a favourite haunt that has now moved into shiny new premises.
The next day, Glebe Markets happened to be on, and we searched them. Merinda
finally found exactly the jacket she was after, and A$45 later we were on
our way.
She was getting comments from passers by before we made it back to Warwick's place,
and no wonder. (Images of Harriet from "Love Actually"....)
We then caught the light rail and train back to Cronulla to meet up with Kay and Edwin.
The following week had been put aside for visiting Pam and Murt on Cabbage Tree island near Taree, and the Repin clan in the Ballina district. We got to travel by XPT, the Australian equvalent of a TGV, etc. I have travelled by XPT before. The train, pictured with us below, looks a whole lot more impressive than it appears in action. This is because it may be rated to travel at great speed, but it can only do so on good tracks, and most of its life it must potter along at a few tens of MPH on the same rails that have carried goods and mail trains for decades. Much of the journey is on a singe line, so Edwin and I would spot the passing loops.
We did lots of good things on Cabbage Tree Island...
On a walk around the island to check out the wallabies we came to a swamp near sunset. The kids could pass in silhouette for a couple of Abos, except maybe for the fur coat. Kay tells me that it is not politically correct to contract 'Aboriginals' to 'Abos' any more. Well, as a kid we had never heard the word Kouris (I think that is their name for their race) nor was 'Abo' a derogatory word. Indeed, it is simply a contraction of the sort that Australians love, such as 'Davo' for 'David'. I do not believe in the need to abide by the fasionable political correctness of words. It is tough luck that any word you care to think of can be converted for derogatory use, as neatly portrayed in "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime".
We took the XPT from Taree to Grafton, where Nicholas would pick us up.
After we had done disgusting things with traditional meat pies, Nick's place was heavenly.
We visited the most eastern point of Australia, Lennox Head.
We ate in sunny cafes.
Our kids got on like a house on fire, and wore themselves out. This has really only happened with Tom and Stacey's family, and now with Nick and Kerry's.
We scoured rockpools for crabs, fish and octopi. Kay and I want to have a marine tank when we return, populated with stuff we catch in the rock pools, with a blue-ringed octopus if we can lay our tentacles on such a beast safely!
Mercifully we did not have to take the train all the way back to Sydney. We flew on one of the new, cheap carriers, for much less than the train cost us coming up! The view when approaching Sydney Kingsford Smith from the ocean afforded this photograph of Cronulla. Compare with the Google image at the top of this page: Denis's house is around the right hand edge of the picture, and the whiter buildings to the left are the piazza and cafes on the isthmus.
The next weekend saw Denis's 80th birthday.
Thereafter a spate of touches, from Tony Green to Tony Parker, from Chinatown and the Chinese Gardens to simple walks on the beach (most of which do not have interesting photographs to commemorate them).
The following weekend we were to spend at maison Mills, meeting Brenda (who proved to be delightful), and catching up with many more friends at the party that Eric and Brenda threw for us. We caught the ferry over to Greenwhich, and partied till well past the witching hour. Eric's well-developed sense of pyromania and a marvellous $60 brazier made the poolside a particular attraction.
We were sorry to leave, even by ferry across the harbour, but Merinda and I got to return before we left for SR, as you will see.
More trains, more ferries, more visits. We took Amelia out to celebrate her 18th birthday.
It is not at all clear who is winning, but maison Carnovale is the site of furious battles for control between parents united and children divided. Bella is photogenic, Leo and Dominic just too fast to capture. They have that in common with Edwin, who if nothing else got in his light-sabre practice.
I gave a lecture at Sydney Uni at Godfrey's behest on electronics in California versus New South Wales. Virtually all of the audience were staff, and most of them were probably coming to say hello to me more than anything else, and a lot were "retired" but returning people from my own time there. We had fun, talked technology and innovation in Aus (not so much fun), and ate a very nice lunch indeed. Don't you guys have lives to go home to?
We had a quite magnificant and very animated dinner at The Peasant's Feast with Andrew, Donna and Warwick.
...and of course we travelled home by train from Macdonaldtown station, or bicycle in Warwick's case.
We visited Taronga Zoo. The animals have prime real estate with harbour views. We took the cable car over their condos.
Merinda assured the snow leapard that her coat was acryllic.
We went to a rather marvellous BBQ at Joe and Alice's place. The photos below show a typical Australian approach to garden partying. First one needs a fire. Note Kay's friend Peter up in the tree dropping branches as firewood.
I did some of the cooking, while Joe sawed up wood. After a while we found a chair that had broken, so that got tossed on too. In no time at all the kids were treated to quite a bonfire. Merinda felt compelled to keep a bucket of water handy, and even tried to quench the fire a little at one point, but we dissuaded her from that malarkey. One of my favourite jumpers got a bit singed, but it was a very good evening.
We returned to spend a night with Warwick and a night with Eric. At Eric's place Brenda helped us dye Merinda's hair purple, although it came out rather more puce than "vixen purple".
Finally we spent another very pleasant day with Denis, and we too flew back to Santa Rosa.