Hello !I'm writing to you from the YHA in the Blue Mountains, near Sydney. Its been a humid week which has worn away at Dec and I at times. It's not all sunshine and rainbows over here, you know! Pedantry CornerThis section, with a name stolen from Private Eye, is to address reported inaccuracies in previous newsletters. Who said I don't have journalistic integrity! I previously stated there were twelve (well, 7 because two fell over and two never existed) apostles. The mathematicians amongst my subscribers identified that 7 + 2 + 2 = 11, not 12. The truth to this rocky religious riddle is that the amount of apostles is of 7, 9 or 12 depending on many factors. Who cares. In a few hundred years or so they'll all have fallen over and we'll have to find new rocks to look at. For those interested, see this article. Back to usual programming. Last Thursday, we started the day by noticing the poster for the Foo Fighters that I had vandalised the night before, cleverly replacing one of the Fs with a P, had been replaced with a new, less vandalisable, version overnight. Clearly Dave Grohl can't take a joke. On Friday we moved to a new hostel in Bondi Beach which had a number of draconian rules and fines, along with a rude owner. We decided to walk the Bondi to Coogee Coastal walk to avoid being fined.   Back at Shark Point, 3 years later. Last time (below) was much sunnier. Still pooed myself standing there this time.   A cool crab we had a stand-off with On Saturday we went for a walk in the scorching midday sun at Hornby Lighthouse, at the mouth of the Sydney Harbour.  I can't believe they did tree vandalism at the Nudist beach (we saw quite a few old blokes with their dingledangles out)  Then we came home and got hammered on the beach with people from the hostel. I lost the fleece my sister got me for Christmas :( I'm never drinking ever again. (Until we had 3 schooners then next day) Sunday took us to Wollongong (The Gong), a city south of Sydney to see old uni friend, Eamon. We stayed in his parents house which was rather lovely, backing onto a little creek.  The view looking north of the Gong from Mt Kiera   I last saw Eamon (left) 3 years ago, then 3 years before that. I wonder what will 2026 have in store?  Me with a coin with a bullet hole in it. Context: Some local bloke came up to us at the pub asking for a lighter talking about needing to walk home with a heavy bag of coins he found on the street. He then wheeled over a shopping trolley with a very heavy bag of coins, before showing us all the coins he, presumably, stole, including this one. On Monday we rented a car and drove to the Blue Mountains. We picked up some kangaroo burgers on the way up and fired up the barbie (no shrimps) as soon as we got to the YHA from which I am writing this update.  Me with as many as 30 eggs. They don't do eggs like this at home  Kanga burgers were yummy, much like beef. We wanted kangaroo sausages cause they call them Kanga Bangas in the shop, but we couldnt find any. On Tuesday we rose somewhat early for a hike to the Grand Canyon (aussie version), the Giant Stairway (900 steps!) & the Three Sisters Mountains. Dec was upset because he got a leech halfway :(  There's no smoke without fire. I left this shelter on the hike very quickly   The Three Sisters. No confusion here as to the amount of sisters. The apostles could learn a lesson  The reason I keep going all wide legged in photos like this is actually because this is as far as I can go & i need to improve my god awful flexibility.  More flexibility training  This cheeky bugger tried to take my ice cream. Unlucky!  Somehow this is (touch wood) the biggest spider ive seen all trip (maybe the size of a large Pea) And now we're back to Wednesday, where we're gonna drive back to Wollongong to collect my glasses I left there before visiting some spots Eamon recommended. (He can't join because he has something called a job that he has to do on Wednesdays) I had a request for some coffee related content, as the coffee is meant to be good in Aus, which it is. Every coffee we've had since that has been bang average so no updates. I hope to include some joe next week. Also, for the musically inclined, I will recommend you check out Way Dynamic - So Familiar.. Dec got me onto them and I'm enjoying them a lot. Bye for now! P.S. P.P.S |
