Au Revoir Australia

After 5 wonderful weeks we are on our way to Hawaii.  Sydney has been having a heatwave the past couple of days and we have nearly melted. We did manage a bit of sightseeing but had to head back to the beach at Manly for one last dip in the South Pacific before Hawaii.   This is a shot of the Botanic Gardens Sydney, hardly anyone in it, so a peaceful oasis after the city.

We managed to find the sculpture "Bonds of Friendship" that is the twin of the one in Old Portsmouth.  This one seems to be much shinier.  We had to take a picture of Radish on top.

We never made it to Bondai beach as we really liked Manly beach - Manly has a regular ferry from Sydney and then has a quiet beach on the harbour side for swimming then a short stroll along the Corso (Australian for causeway) and you are on the South Pacific with all the surfers.  The lifegurds have jetskis now and seem to enjoy whizzing about checking all is OK.  Martin ofcourse has been taking pictures of boats.

On our final day we had a quick look around Paramatta, the suburb of Sydney we were staying in.  Didn't go far as temperatures were scorching .  We did take shelter in a bar and were having an interesting conversation with an old lady when the barmaid told her to drink up and get out as she was banned.  She was 70 if she was a day so wonder what she did to get banned!

This is a view from Albert Park in Paramatta with the Catholic Cathedral behind the palm trees.  Everything is a strange mixture of exotic and familiar.  See road sign below.  Our local train journey goes through Redfern, Clyde, Liverpool, Richmond, Haslemere and Emu Point

Thank you to all the people we visited in Australia - we had a "Bonza " time and hope to be back, so you won't have seen the last of us.