Today we set off for Bondi Beach although we didn’t plan to swim we felt we had to go and see it and I am glad we didn’t want a swim as it was really busy. The hop on hop off bus ticket we have had a route out to the beach so we got to see another couple of areas of Sydney. The train line by us took us to Central Station which is where the bus left from and we went out along Oxford Street past Centennial Parklands which were created as part of the centenary of Sydney. You actually get a great view along the beach as you drive down the hill to the front, we got off the bus with a view of walking along the beach to the next stop and getting back on but in the end we walked up to the Pool which is on the North end of the beach and has been cut out of the rock, some of the iconic pictures of the beach have waves crashing over the pool. Compared to the beaches we have seen so far it is really busy on Bondi but that is probably as much to do with the fact that it is Sunday and in the middle of the summer holidays as anything else. The beach seems to have sections which made parts quite busy and others virtually empty, we decided that this is because people wanted to be in line with where you can swim rather than where you can surf but I am not sure and the swimming bit looked very small which is probably why the pool had quite a few people in it. We walked along the front where there were some really nice murals, then rather than get on the bus we walked back along the beach watching the surfers then got back on the bus to head back to the city. We had originally planned to use the city bus to get back to the wharf but in the end we decided to take the train back down so that we could go back to the crepe shop for lunch for some reason the train journey only cost 20c! After lunch we had a historic walk to do, starting at the Customs house which has a ‘replica’ of the Union Jack flying on the site where the first British flag was raised, not sure why it is a replica as it looked just like the Union Jack! From there we walked around some of the little allies until we came to Cumberland Place which is one of the original residential areas which were built along the routes which were used from about 1807 when the wharfs were first built. There steps were cut by hand and some dynamite by the convicts. We walked up to Observatory Hill which is the site of Sydneys first windmill it was originally called Fort Phillip, then Flagstaff Hill but the name was changed to Observatory Hill in 1858 it is also known as the site of the time ball which is dropped at 1pm each day and a cannon blast fired to signal the correct time. Finally we walked down Ferry Lane to the Paddock, it once led to the waterfront and when the bubonic plague broke out in Sydney, the first person to contract the disease lived in this area he was Arthur Payne who was a lorry driver in the wharves. During the cleansing operations much of the housing in this area was demolished, the paddock is an area which has been a playground for local children for over 60 years. We walked through this area, along a road that runs behind some of the houses then finally got to the Rocks area. This is a second of narrow lanes and streets and is the first place the convicts and ex-convicts lived, apparently most convicts worked for the government during the day and worked for themselves the rest of the time building houses, opening shops, running pubs and creating a new life, today it has a market and food stalls, we walked through the area and back to circular quay then went back to the apartment to relax.
