Fractal Blog

We have been in Sydney almost six months now, and have somehow never managed to get to Bondi Beach. Probably because no ferries go there. However, today was an absolutely gorgeous winter day, 21C, cloudless blue skies, on the day equivalent to Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere. I decided to make it my mission for today to get to Bondi Beach. It's a 35-min bus ride from Circular Quay. On arrival, I couldn't believe the azure blue waves curling in beautifully.

Getting a bit closer to ground level it turned out that the waves were enormous. Crystal-clear and wonderfully-formed, but huge.

Only very good surfers were in the water. A lot of them. This one had an absolutely epic wipeout, which I just caught on film.

Just look at this wave. It's so perfectly formed, and yet so dangerous to people who don't know what they're doing. Like me. I didn't see a single bodyboard on the entire beach, only serious surfers. This could change at the weekend. I might need to take the Intrepid Surfer there, if only so he stops complaining about there not being any surf.

From Bondi Beach, the Eastern Coastal Walk goes all the way to Coogee. I decided to content myself with going to Bronte Beach via Tamarama, about 3.5km. It was billed as taking one hour though it took me half that, despite the hilly, rocky path along the coast. Even though I stopped frequently to take arty photographs, like this one.

Finally, Bronte Beach. There were surfers there as well. I stared from the surfers to the bright-yellow, eminently visible "Beach Closed. Dangerous Conditions" sign. Clearly Waverley Council, having the safety of the surfers at heart, had closed the beach due to the conditions. Just as clearly the surfers were simply ignoring this. No lifeguards on this beach.

And I got an Anti-Christmas goodie today!

Today is the day of the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Yet what greeted us this morning was a warm, sunny day with blue skies. Naturally we went to the beach. I can cope with winter like this! We checked the weather in Bristol today, on the day of the Summer Solstice: 18 degrees, cloudy with chance of rain. Not smug at all.

We took this picture some time ago on the way to Manly (in the rain). The rain caused a beautiful rainbow over the Eastern suburbs.

For those suffering from Apple Fever, today is the day: Apple's 215th store in the world opens in Sydney at 5pm today. This is the site, in the middle of the CBD. It's been under wraps for months. Some people have been queuing since yesterday to be first in the new store. (It's winter here, and temperatures do drop to something like 13C at night.) While I will admit to having a weakness for most things Apple I can't imagine going that far. And the new iPhone 3G isn't even out yet (another hotly-anticipated event).

Having chortled at the queue I went to find evidence of the other event that is just starting: The 2008 Biennale, billed as "Australia's Festival of Contemporary Art". Contemporary Art is one of those terms that holds very limited interest for me, evoking as it does images of unmade beds and rooms with a light switch but no furniture a la Tate Gallery in London. However, there is supposed to be an Art Walk all the way from Wooloomooloo through the Botanical Gardens via The Rocks (basically, along the Southern coast of the harbour) to Cockatoo Island (the latter via free ferry). This Walk is meant to "surprise" and "challenge" Sydneysiders on their way to work so I was hoping for photo opportunities. I found nothing Art-related while strolling through the Botanical Gardens, so either I don't recognise Contemporary Art when I see it or they haven't finished putting up the art works. Still, on a sunny winter day, the fountain in Hyde Park (that's Hyde Park Sydney, not London) caused an artificial rainbow which was very pretty.

Since I clearly had to create my own Contemporary Art on this walk I took some more photographs. This is a detail of the same fountain.

This is a fairly standard shot of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House seen from the Domain. The difference between a snapshot and Art is the removal of all colour, followed by applying a gradient filter to the result.

The Leaning Tower of Sydney. Or, if one wants to be prosaic about it, the Sydney Tower shot at an angle.

From time to time an unusual maritime-related sight greets us when looking over the harbour. Such as this one. On the assumption that the containership isn't meant to be off Cremorne Point I can only guess that the pilot is lost (or possibly he ran the ship aground?). The ship hasn't moved since I first noticed it, and the Mosman and Taronga Zoo ferries can be seen scuttling around to avoid it. Hint: Sydney Heads, and the open ocean, is towards the East. Or, if you're inbound, the Commercial Docks are further West, beyond the Harbour Bridge.

While I'm blogging, here are some more photographs I thought worthy of public display. This is a very realistic statue of a horse with her foal in the Botanical Gardens.

For those familiar with World of Warcraft, the crown of this tree, devoid of leaves, looks just like Razorthorn Trail. Now we know where the blueprint came from ;-)

A lorikeet looking in through the bedroom window.

It was the Queen's Birthday public holiday yesterday. Though cold, grey and drizzly we went to the beach again, where I was content to watch the proceedings from the warmth of a cafe overlooking the beach, with a cup of coffee in hand. When I had both hands free I decided to take a video of the Intrepid Bodyboarder.

It's been blowing a howling gale for 24 hours now, and it has rained incessantly since Sunday. Yesterday they suspended all ferry services because of low fog. The weather is utterly vile. So I took a perfectly good picture of a flower and liberally applied the Liquify filter. (Liquid = water, get it?) Come on, going outside to actually take a photograph is out of the question. Forecast: More rain. Including most of the coming bank holiday weekend. (It's the Queen's Birthday public holiday, an excellent excuse for a three-day weekend.)

A weekend packed full of activity. Saturday looked like a lovely, warm, sunny day with no surf at all so we decided to take snorkelling gear to the beach instead. And had one of the best snorkelling experiences ever. We saw four sharks! Proper sharks with lots of teeth and gills, effortlessly gliding through the water very very quickly. These were young ones; the biggest we saw was about a meter in length (maybe 1.5m but they get bigger with the retelling). This was just as well because mummy or daddy shark can grow to 3.5 to 4m, at which point perhaps our immediate reaction would have been "Aaarrgh, sharks!!" rather than "Aren't they pretty".They grow up at Shelly Beach, and move away when they're old enough. They ignored us completely, just swam away when we got too close.

Then we sighted another giant cuttlefish; they are sooo cute. We really need an underwater camera. However, having no such equipment at the moment, the picture accompanying the above paragraph shows the Harbour Bridge being used to project football-related images on, the largest such projection ever done on the bridge (I can see why, there is no bigger projection surface available on the bridge). Something to do with the football association meeting in Sydney this weekend.

Following the snorkelling the Generous One took me out to dinner at Darling Harbour, a promised treat planned for last weekend but delayed due to the unexpected travel requirements. Fishy dishes (in my case prawns but octopus for the more adventurous gourmet) were consumed, as well as excellent steaks and desserts involving chocolate cake with vanilla ice-cream. What more could one want? Turns out that we got more anyway: On the way back home our ferry left Circular Quay just as fireworks erupted from a barge next to the bridge. We got the very best view of fireworks we've ever had, or at least the closest. Possibly slightly too close; some empty shells landed on the ferry. Anyway, how lucky was that?

Sunday dawned grey and cloudy, with rain forecast. But it was the weekend and one must make most of weekends. And the surf was predicted to be as much as two feet. So we packed the boards anyway and headed off. The dark clouds did not look at all inviting but the Intrepid Surfer went in anyway. Claimed that the water was lovely, toasty warm, at any rate much warmer than the air. That I could believe. But he looked like he had fun so I went in as well, thinking I must be crazy. It turned out that it was fine; the waves were great for me (sensibly I don't feel that surf has to exceed four feet before it's "proper" surf) and I had lovely long rides all the way to the beach. It started raining somewhere in the middle of all this but we didn't mind; after all, we were already wet!

It turned out that drying oneself on the beach and putting on damp clothes during rain is rather more difficult. The post-surfing beer went down well, especially since the establishment had very sensibly put the heating on.

All in all a most successful weekend was had by all.

Incidentally, long wetsuits work. Toasty warm I was during surfing, and at least not entirely hypothermic during snorkelling. I even chased a shark (the shark won).