Bondi Beach

Today seems like a nice day to visit Bondi Beach.  Bondi is not easily accessible from Central Sydney:  it is too far east to walk to, so your options are either to ride a bus all the way there, which could take a while, or ride the train to a station called Bondi Junction, which is still about two miles from the beach.  Most people switch to bus at that point and ride it to the beach.  Well, we like to walk, so our plan is to ride the train and walk the two miles to the beach.  We walk to the Town Hall station here in central Sydney, which is only about a few blocks from our apartment.  From there, the train ride is only about ten minutes or so to travel four stations to Bondi Junction.  We had never ridden the train system here in Sydney before, and the trains are really nice, very comfortable.

At Bondi Junction, there is a modern shopping mall, which is modern and very nice.  We are turned around a bit and unsure which way is east to get to the beach, but with a little help from a few locals we are soon on the Bondi Road heading to the beach.  When we originally planned our trip to Australia, we had thought an apartment in Bondi might be a nice option, but now that we are on the ground, we realize that it is a little too remote.  The neighborhood is as you might expect from any beach town, nice but a little run down.  Lots of places to get cheap food.  We pass two businesses that advertise "Panel Beating."  What would that be?  Well, it turns out that is the Australian term for an automobile body shop.  Panel Beating is what one does to remove dents from a car.  We walk the two miles to the beach, and it is not a difficult walk since it is a gentle downhill almost the whole way to the beach.

When we arrive at the beach, the sky is a little cloudy, which is not a bad thing -- helps to keep us from overheating.  Our first stop is for lunch, so we go to a restaurant called Bondi Trattoria, which has a nice view of the beach.  It is about 11:45am, and they are only serving their breakfast menu until noon, so Rob has a frittata, and I get the breakfast pizza (regular pizza with a fried egg on top).  It is very good.

We now begin our beach walk in earnest.  We walk north along the beach sideway and then look south at the beach.  Here is our view:

Then we turn around and head south, but not before stopping at a shop to buy some Bondi t-shirts.  South of Bondi Beach is a great paved walkway along the ocean that connects Bondi to beaches to the south:  Tamarama and Bronte.  The walk has amazing weather sandstone rock formations.  This photo shows that path with the rocks, which has nice houses overlooking it:

The path from Bondi to Bronte is about a four mile walk, round trip.  It is very beautiful.  As we walk, the sky clears, which makes the water turn an amazing blue color.  This next photo is a view to the south with Bronte Beach in the distance:

Lots of walking today, but when we return to Bondi Beach, we take a cab back to Bondi Junction.  It costs a little money, but we have walked enough for one day and can't get motivated to walk two miles more -- all uphill.  A quick train ride and we are back to central Sydney and our apartment.  What a lovely day!

We have dinner reservations at a Thai restaurant in Sydney that is very well known, called Longrain.  We are able to walk the short distance and arrive at our designated time of 7pm.  The menu us very interesting, different from the normal Thai restaurant, so we are going to be adventurous.  For starters we have Green Papaya Salad -- not an unusual choice, but very spice to our palates.  We also have a salad of Eggnet and Pork.  What is Eggnet?  Egg prepared in some sort of way to look like a net -- I wish I could explain it better.  It sat atop the salad, which was delicious and not too spicy.  Our mains were Green Jungle Curry with Baramundi -- good, but didn't really taste like a curry -- and we had a side of Green Vegetables with Oyster Sauce, my favorite part of the meal actually.  Rob comments that all of the dishes had the flavor of too much raw garlic, not necessarily a good thing.  The meal was a little disappointing actually.  Our wine was a pinot noit from Ashton Hills Vineyard.  This winery is in the Adelaide Hills area of South Australia.  It was very good, but did not pair well at all with this food.  We should have order a white, like a reisling, instead.  Oh well, time for bed!