Today Ruth, Carroll and I kinda wandered all over the city. It was actually the first time that the three of us had been able to spend a whole day together since I arrived! First we headed downtown to Darling Harbour, where there was a Brazilian cultural festival going on. We listened to some great drumming and other musical acts, ate roasted chicken on a stick, tried some Brazilian cola and munched on Brazilian donuts. The donuts reminded me very much of beavertails, except that they were rolled into a banana-shaped/sized tube and filled with chocolate. Mmmm.
Then we wandered over to Paddy's Market, a place I'd been meaning to get to all week. Turns out that this is a huge flea market type place, actually one of the biggest ones I've ever been in. We checked out some of the stalls but the market was really crowded and noisy, so we soon left. We took a short break at a local coffee bar before continuing on with the day.
We still had a good portion of the afternoon to kill, so Carroll decided to take us on a bit of a driving tour around Sydney and its suburbs. We went out to The Gap, which is located on the south head of the Sydney Harbour. Both the northern and southern ends of the opening to the Harbour are protected by huge cliffs, but there are some really good lookout spots on the southern head. I think I am still psyching myself up for the abseiling I will be doing in November/December... I kept looking over the edge of the cliffs and thinking that I will at some point in the near future be climbing DOWN something even deeper than these on a rope. Yikes!
(On the other hand, I spent the month leading up to my whitewater canoeing trip earlier this year doing much the same thing... worrying over whether or not I'd be able to do it... and I survived that adventure just fine!)
We finished off the afternoon taking the scenic route back to Caringbah, along all these windey roads that hugged the coastline. It seemed to me that around every corner was another beautiful vista full of palm trees, blue ocean surf, and beachfront. On the other hand, the roads right along the coast are narrow, often on steep hills, and with lots of sharp turns! I was sure glad it was Carroll driving and not me. But in a week's time Jen and I will be in Tasmania with a rental car, so I'll have to give it a try sooner or later!
