Little Brother / Big Times

What a treat!

A wonderful weekend for this old blogger and his pretty little wife — my brother, Mark, in Sydney for the weekend leading up to a week full of work in Australia. It was simply wonderful as is the norm for Mark and I whenever we get together! The really neat thing for me about Mark — if he wasn’t my brother he’d be one of my best friends. He’s just great.

On with the details….

Saturday morning we met around 10:00 near his hotel at Circular Quay. Mark had just gotten off a long LONG flight a few hours earlier ( a flight without onboard entertainment — OUCH ), checked in at the Marriott, showered and met Julie and I for a day of making merry. We boarded a bus and headed down the coast to the town of Coogee. Coogee (Cud-gee) is south of Bondi and a favourite place of Sydney-siders to live along the beach. It’s just far enough south to miss the tourist crowds that jam Bondi beach and a lovely little place to be sure. The beach is full of large breaking waves and a nice boardwalk with plenty of shops and restaurants. We stopped for lunch at the Coogee Bay Hotel which claims to have the largest beer garden in the Sydney area. Lunch was pretty darned good even though I dropped a big piece of fried fish on my pant leg — how lucky for me there aren’t a lot of cats in Australia.

We ate a leisurely lunch and decided to tempt fate (fate meaning my bad knees and pneumonia riddled body) by walking north from Coogee toward Bondi beach, The walk (Bondi-Coogee beach walk) is a pretty famous 5 km trek famed for it’s beauty. It runs all along the ocean with some pretty amazing views and scenery. We stopped once for a coffee (Jeff) / beer (Julie and Mark) and had just a great time chatting, sight-seeing and exploring. Mark, “The Whale Whisperer” spotted a water spout from a whale and we had a lot of fun (pithy conversation included) exploring Waverly Cemetery. After about 3 1/2 km my knees were fried so we jumped a bus and headed to the train station in Bondi junction. We trained into the city and caught a cab to one of Mark’s favourite places “The Hero of Waterloo”. THOW is a really old pub with huge wooden beams and ancient stone walls and a trio of musicians that perform in the corner. The average age in the Trio has got to be 80 so it’s kind of quaint to be sure — we had a blast.

From there we walked a few shorts blocks back to The Rocks and enjoyed a few more beverages at The Argyle — a collection of restaurants and night clubs that are all super fun, really cool, and wonderfully swish. We laughed and chatted and just had fun kicking back enjoying the scene. Next door to The Argyle area was “Sake” — a Japanese fusion restaurant where we were lucky enough to snag a table. The food was so good — we just marvelled at every course — all 6 of them. One of the best meals I’ve ever had to be sure. Such fun.

We bid goodnight to Mark around 8:00pm and we headed home to recharge while he went back to the Marriott for some sorely needed sleep. He was a real trooper after that long flight. Harsdly even showed at all.

Sunday (today) we met again around 10:00 and headed off on a ferry to Manly Beach. Both Manly and Coogee are on our short list of places to live when our lease expires end of January. Manly is super lovely — probably the most like a southern California beach town of all the beach communities (except for maybe Bondi). Anyway, we went for a nice coastal walk sharing some sights that we’d seen before with Mark. It was awesome fun — sunny and brisk but not too cold). We settled in for a nice lunch beachfront and enjoyed some great conversation and a bit of work talk, etc. Fun, comfortable, just great.

After lunch we wandered about Manly looking at apartment buildings trying to get a feel for living there. Hard to say what will be available come summer (Feb 1) but it appears there are good options oceanfront that could really make for a nice lifestyle. It’s a relatively flat area which my knees would appreciate and there are plenty of grocery/shop/restaurant options too. Might be our leading contender thus far? We left Manly around 3:00 with every intention of hitting the fish market and making a nice dinner back at our place. My knees had other thoughts so we ended up simply ferrying back to Circular Quay, then a second ferry to where we live. We chilled there for about an hour and finally caught a bus into Balmain for an early dinner at the Monkey Bar. The Monkey Bar is a Parisian themed place near where we live and we had a really nice meal with some laughter and good conversation. A cab back home with a stop at the ferry for Mark and that’s it!

We might see Mark again for dinner on Tuesday, or Thursday, or both which will be wonderful too. I always say goodbye to my brother wishing we lived close to each other. I just love the little guy!