Bathed

Love when I do my Blip entries here it initially tells me that the date I want to enter is in the future!
Woke to a gorgeous warm sunny day again….we’re so lucky given the floods elsewhere and the record of cool and rain there’s been for the last couple of spring/summers in NSW…sat on the balcony in our PJs lapping it up.
Once we were ready we decided to pop across to Rushcutter’s bay just across the road from where we’re staying to walk round the boats with their lovely clinking rigging noises and explore the park and what turned out to be a pet owners’ fair. From there we caught the bus downtown and explored Darling Harbour. Once again intrigued by the history and all the great photos of places we were passing from previous decades. Loved the Poynton electric swing bridge and the fact that it’s not changed at all in so many years and still works. We walked across it and all round the harbour, but decided to leave the maritime mu-sea-um (as it was spelled!) for an inevitable rainy day.
Walked across past all the fountains being enjoyed by lots of children screaming with excitement, to the Chinese garden although decided not to go in. As we stood in the entrance we saw this lizard (about a metre long) just sunning himself on the path!
Continued on to Chinatown where K had a hankering for noodles and we wandered round and round a food court trying to choose what to have. Feel I should have picked one of the whole fish dishes which looked amazing but wasn’t sure how well I’d cope with the bones using only chopsticks! We chatted about ‘holiday regrets’ and mercifully only had a couple for this whole time….one was not ordering the fish today, not having the scrambled eggs at Lennox Head for brunch last week, and not taking our bathers with us when we went to Bondi. Not bad for nearly 3 weeks!
Family nearby in the food court had a child with a meltdown but made much worse by the OTT response of the father (both boys and the mother looked horribly cowed even when he’d left to collect their food) and by the comments of a man next to us who talked about ‘Herod having the right idea’….his wife looked as appalled as us by that. We left!
We headed to the tiny hole in the wall shop to pick up some Emperor’s puffs …..freshly made little pancake type balls filled with custard and piping hot. We joined the queue and it moved quickly as the old Heath Robinson style machine churned out the puffs and the assistant shovelled them out to the appreciative customers. We found a sunny spot and devoured them…delicious!
Walked over to Circular Quay and caught the ferry to Manly…lovely to cross the harbour again in such glorious weather. We walked with all the crowds to the beach, where we saw the usual lifeguards, surfers and beautiful sweep of clean sandy beach. We wandered round the headland to Shelley Beach on H’s recommendation and had a (very early!) happy hour drink overlooking the ocean. Followed up by a bit of a snooze on the sand, then walked back to the ferry. As we arrived in the city the clouds started to come over but we’ve had such a lovely three days of gorgeous weather we can’t complain!
Train home, and picked up a few things for supper then slumped on the sofa when we got in. Although it’s felt a more lazy day than yesterday we actually walked slightly further today…10 miles! No wonder we had some down time before mushrooms on toast supper and some tea, chocolate and a film.
We suddenly realised today that we only have a few more days here…we fly out Thursday night. It’s been lovely to be unaware of the end date of our holiday for so long.