Beach

Did I mention that there's something in the Australian air that makes me want to do too much?

Today was a lovely Spring weekend morning and I thought it would be the perfect day to see those legendary beaches. OK, I did that at Waikiki and I didn't really have that much fun. But still: when in Rome. So I bought a ticket on the (overpriced) Bondi Explorer bus and headed for the exotic East.

I spent an hour walking around Nielsen Park, which was nice enough and had lovely views of Sydney, and was surrounded by impressive houses and by cars with enigmantic bumper stickers. NoBirds..com.au -- the extra period in the URL is not a typo. Huh? Then off to Watson's Bay and Doyles for a lunch of nice fried Barramundi and a nicer oaked Chardonnay.

And then to Bondi, which was chock full of cheerful people, just like you see in pictures of Coney Island from the old days.

And then I walked from Bondi to Tamarama, Brontë, and Coogee. The cliffs were scenic: this means they were high. The beaches were lovely: that means they were at sea level. Everyone was having a terrific time, mostly because they weren't wearing many clothes and they were staying in one place rather than walking up bluffs.

There were some nice aboriginal rock carvings, and in one place by the path I stumbled across what seems to be a scatter of potsherds. Ward-Perkins points out that pottery, once broken, is just about indestructible and so most of the poetry pottery that has ever been made is still kicking around. But still: who breaks pottery on the beach in Australia?

Coogee was a sight for sore eyes, and also sore muscles. It was interesting, in this short stroll, how different each beach seems to be. One had lots of teens and tweens doing athletic things, one had lots of little kids, one had lots of people from far away. There was a crowd of Japanese tourists who were playing a game of one-legged chicken that attracted participants from up and down the beach.