So after being away from Sydney for two weekends out of the previous three, I wasn't too disappointed to find myself back in the city, without having planned too much for the weekend, on a gloriously sunny Saturday. It may be winter here, but on a good day it still gets up to about 20 degrees in the daytime - noticeably warmer than Melbourne!
The Biennale of Sydney is currently on until September, having kicked off the previous weekend. It's Australia's biggest art exhibition, held every two years (hence the name, duh). This time around, amongst other venues across the city, it's taken over the former naval shipyard of Cockatoo Island, which is also the biggest island in Sydney harbour. I later found out that this odd place has only been open to the public for a couple of months, and gloriously unrestored it is too - the abandoned steelworks, power station, sheds and dormitories made for fantastic 'spaces' for the art.
I spent about four hours wandering around Cockatoo Island, and think I managed to see every bit of the art. Even the video 'art'. Which is saying something for me. The lasting impression for me though was just how unexpected it was to see such rusting, decaying, industrial space in the middle of a city like Sydney, which like a lot of urban Australia seems sometimes just so shiny, clean and new that it gets almost, well, boring. I liked it.
To be honest I probably enjoyed the island more than some of the art, and part of the fun was getting there... the harbour ferries are probably the most scenic way of getting around town (more fun than the buses at any rate) and the exhibition organisers have laid on free ferries from Circular Quay for the duration. Free boat rides are always good, especially when they involve going under the harbour bridge and giving you a good view of all the amazing harbourfront houses that seem to be a Sydney specialty.
I saw more of what the rich of Sydney spend their money on Sunday up at Palm Beach, the poshest of the posh northern beaches suburbs, and the furthest from the city centre - 40km away in fact, fact fans. Had I really thought this through, I probably would have chosen to rent a car to get there - instead I took the only other alternative, the 'express' bus, which despite being an 'express', took over an hour and a half! It still staggers me that a city of four million people relies mainly on buses for public transport... god knows how the place is going to cope when the Pope (and a couple hundred thousand of his fans) arrives next week!
Anyway Palm Beach is also the real-life location for the ridiculously popular soap Home and Away. There is even a surf life savers clubhouse where you can buy crap T-shirts with said soap's name printed badly on them. This explained why when I arrived around lunchtime, after an hour and a half on the bus, leaving the touristed heart of the city behind, I found myself having practically to wrestle with a coachload of Irish teenagers just to buy a pie. Not quite what I expected that far out of the city.
The headland at Palm Beach is topped by an old lighthouse that looks out over not only the northern beaches and the Pacific, but also Broken Bay - the next bay north from Sydney harbour and where the Hawkesbury River meets the ocean, and Pittwater - another ridiculously beautiful stretch of water. On Sundays you can climb up inside the lighthouse and get an even better view of it all. Which is exactly what I did, and that (and the sweaty slog up the hill to get there) was worth the trip. By the time I got back into the city it was dark!
Work saw me back in Brisbane on Thursday and Friday but (unusually) I was able to get back to Sydney for after work drinks. Which was so much fun that with a couple of other partners in crime I ended up out on the tiles until stupid o'clock, completely writing off my Saturday. The only thing I managed to get done was get my hair cut and then spend over an hour over a coffee with one of said partners in crime, dissecting the previous night's shenanigans. At a housewarming party later I drank only water and lemonade and probably made the worst conversation in years.
So this morning (Monday) I was sat at my desk, just starting to get over a minor hangover from a few drinks on Sunday, when I got an email from my dad. His dad (my granddad Bill) had passed away in the night. Sad news. He'd been in hospital for about a month for something relatively minor and had just deteriorated from there. Poor bugger. So watch this space, I may find myself back home a bit sooner than I thought.
Robin
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