Sydney – city slickers/country bumpkins – Tilley hats – lunch with Roberto – Telstra Shop for many hours - dinner with Sydney Harmsens - Wakefield/Smith connection

So today we aren’t sailors, we are city slickers. Or country bumpkins in the big city….

We started off the day with lovely long hot showers in the beautiful bathroom facilities at the yacht club. Just a teensy bit of a hassle getting off the dock… The gate is padlocked, from 5pm till 8am, and we do have a key. But…we can’t get it to work. And no not just me; PETE can’t get it to work, so it MUST be very dodgy! So to get to the showers we had to climb over the fence and drop quite a long way down onto the little beach. I am very sooky about this sort of thing. Climbing is one thing, dropping from a height another… I had to fall, like a large koala, onto Pete’s shoulders and then to the ground. Not dignified but…never mind!

A bit after midday we set off for the city. We confidently waited at the bus-stop for a swiftly-arriving city bus. Not a problem! But…it was a pre-paid ticket only bus… The bus driver explained this to us, kindly and gently. But…where were we supposed to buy tickets?? At a newsagent or ticket stall… We explained that we had just stepped off a BOAT, and that there were no ticket stalls at the Middle Harbour Yacht Club. This driver was a saintly soul; he stopped at a shop in Neutral Bay so that we could buy pre-paid tickets and put them through his machine, while the whole bus-load of passengers waited patiently.

So what did we do with our Sydney Day? Well… we hung around in JB Hi Fi and in the Telstra Shop, while Pete tried to get his phone fixed. For many hours! I fortunately had my iphone to play with so I didn’t get bored and crabby.

At 2pm we met up with Pete’s glamorous friend Roberto Aurelli, who has a dental practice in Martin Place. There was Pete, in his paint-splattered black jumper, well-worn jeans and work-marked Blundstones; and there was Robert, in a beautiful tailored white shirt, blue zipped puffer vest, tailored trousers, and pale grey suede brogues… Total Antithesis, and such good friends, right back from their school days. Robert took us through a maze of tunnels to a Vietnamese restaurant which made authentic and delicious pho (soup). Lovely to catch up with Robert but…my bowl was never-ending and I only made it half-way through…

Back to the Telstra shop for more waiting… Oh and in between, I found the hat shop, in beautiful Strand Arcade. I had googled where to find Tilley hats in Australia, and this was the mecca for these hats, strongly recommended by one of Pete’s sailing advisors (Hugh Garnham) and by my friend Elsa.

So now we are the proud owners of matching pale green hats which are supposed to be THE BEST, for keeping the sun off, for not blowing off into the sea, everything you can ever want in a hat, really…

After a few more hours in the Telstra shop, it was time to find a bus back to Spit Bridge, and 2XS. It was so cold, around Wyndham Station, with an icy wind. I was very glad I was wearing my Mountain Design puffer jacket but oh dear where were my beanie, my gloves, my scarf?? Dear Tasmanians, do not let anyone tell you it is too cold to bear in Hobart or Launceston! Sydney is just as cold, in winter!

We bought our tickets at a kiosk, and found, to my great joy, a stray Sunday Tasmanian amongst the newspapers. When we (finally) found and clambered onto the correct bus, a lovely man stood up, and said we should have seats. These seats, I pointed out to Pete, were designated for the aged and infirm…and maybe for those clasping to their bosoms …a Sunday Tasmanian newspaper!!

We had a few happy minutes struggling with The Key – no success – had to go to the office to get someone to let us in. Very glad I didn’t have to climb UP Pete’s back to get back onto the pontoons to get to 2XS! We left a few minutes later, armed with a big yellow torch, to walk to Chris and Karen’s house. P ete thought this would only take ten minutes… “We can see their house from here! It’s no distance at all!” he cried, happily. Well…it was a lovely walk…but not so very close at all… More like thirty minutes than the ten he had anticipated.

We had such a nice night with the Sydney Harmsens - delicious food, delightful company. Chris drove us home; very kind; he had been up since 2.30am working… So now we are back on cosy 2XS, with the heater working fill pelt time to go to bed; city life is even more exhausting than sailing life!

Small world… I think I wrote a bit about the nature reserve on Flinder’s Island– Patriarch’s – which was set up by our lovely new friend Margaret (aka Margie)’s father, Derek Smith, to provide a safe haven for Cape Barren geese and other wildlife. Today I received a textmessage from Margie asking if Gavin Wakefield was related to Dr Bill Wakefield. Well yes – Bill is Gavin’s father – what, I asked, was the connection with Margie? I guessed it might be a friendship between Bill and Derek, and I was correct – they were united in their love of wildlife, particularly birds, I should imagine, and they were the best of friends. Margie and I are delighted to have discovered this connection.

Both Derek and Bill would probably be very pleased to hear how much pleasure I am getting from watching the birds along our way up the coast, but maybe they would be dismayed that I am not all that scientific about identifying them… ummm… albatross… ummm… some sort of petrel? One good tern deserves another? I am a very lightweight birdwatcher…

Tomorrow – the Blue Mountains!