Moans of a Crone

To Sydney

Monday, 22 Feb 2011

Waited a couple of hours at the airport in LA (LAX). The gate area was very crowed, no open power outlets, too cheap to spend $45 for the club room. Yawn. Broke down and had a Frappuccino (the kind with no coffee). Plane (Boeing 777)  has 3/3/3 seat configuration and I was on the aisle of a middle three. Full flight. Couple next to me argued and snored. Ugh.

Flight arrived on schedule. I didn’t sleep much but I wasn’t entirely miserable either. V Australia doesn’t bring around as many snacks and doesn’t give you the little goodies (like mints, etc.) but then again the flight was hundreds of dollars less, so I can go along with that. The food wasn’t ghastly and it was plenty. I was able to finally watch the movie “Eat, Pray, Love”. I have wanted to see it anyway, but I especially wanted to see it at the start of this journey!

The shuttle company was kind of a disaster – (Note: use Sydney Shuttle, not Airport Connection). But I met a nice young woman from France (actually from Reunion Island) that was also waiting for the same bus. She arrived today to spend a year as a nurse here. As she pointed out, it was too early for most things to be open anyway, so by the time we did get to our respective accommodation we could take care of business.  We would have been waiting somewhere, for something.  I guess.

The Russell Hotel – The Rocks – Sydney  The hotel is a welcome pleasure. Yes it is older and the rooms are small. No, there is no central air. But we are right on the harbor near the bridge and the breeze is cool. The view is nice and the furnishings in the room are quite cozy. Clean and comfortable. The bathroom down the hall is spacious, modern and clean and has, so far, been mine when I needed it. The white terry bathrobe for those trips down the hall?  Priceless!  When you consider that this hotel costs about 1/3 of the others around it and has an interesting history and is located right in The Rocks at Circular Quay, it’s a heckuva deal. $5/day for high speed internet, too.
My room at the Russell

Happily they said I could have my room in about ½ hour. It was still only about 9:30a. So I left my bags and I took a wander about. I found a ghost tour company with a tour that had stories I have not yet heard. Stunning price – $42. When I first started doing these they were always about $10. So I found out the details but decided not to do it tonight. I got a coffee and a sandwich – yes it was only 10:00a but I had breakfast on the plane at 5:00a and didn’t want breakfast again! My next mission was to find a place to rent a bicycle. I looked up from the table where I was finishing my coffee and my gaze fell on – yes, the bicycle tour/rental store. Right there and just around the corner from the hotel. I went to have a chat with them and got lots of good information and route ideas. I didn’t want to get the bike without checking that I had a place to keep it, so I went back to the hotel to get checked in. They said no problem with keeping the bike in the room. I got settled in to the room, took a much-craved shower, checked email , set my alarm and catnapped, My plan was to sleep for two hours but I actually only slept for an hour. Got dressed for bicycling and cheerily headed back to the bike shop.

Everything was going so well! I suppose that explains why I jauntily stepped badly onto the old, uneven cobbled walkway of The Rocks and really twisted my ankle! Ouch! I sat for a bit until it felt a little better, then limped on over to the bike shop. Got the bike anyway. Spent a long time talking to Pat about the various routes I may take this week. Rented a girl bike – I’ve never ridden one before this. Well, not since I was about 9 years old.  It’s fine, the only time I hate it is when I need to walk the bike up or down stairs – not as easy to hoist up without that boy bar. The bike is a fairly decent, quite new Trek mountain bike. The young man who worked there, Pat, fixed me up with helmet, lock and bag. No odometer, though. I’m trying to install the sport gps ap on my blackberry. So far no luck, but I’ll figure it out.

I started out by riding over ‘the bridge’, just because, you know. There it is. It has separate, car, train, pedestrian and bicycle roadways. I mostly just went over and back because there is not much different on that side of the bridge as far as any less traffic or better bike paths. But I wanted to ride over and back and so I did. Said hello to the security woman standing at the center, both times. She has a lovely view but I would guess that most of the time it is a very boring occupation. She was very alert to my approach and looked me over like it was her job (yuk, yuk – see that’s funny because it IS her job). I only saw one other bicyclist on the bridge on my way over and back. You run into security people standing around up in the bridge work itself when you do a bridge climb, too.
Harry’s Cafe de Wheels



Dinner: Veggie Tiger from Harry’s



Dinner spot
Dinner view

One of the things that Pat raved the most about is ‘real Aussie food’ which he says is a meat pie and that not only is the best ‘real Aussie food’ to be found at this shack called Harry’s but that they have a unique offering that is called a “Tiger”. It is a meat pie in a regular mini-pie-shell, loaded with mashed potatoes and mashed peas and then topped with gravy. So eventually on my deathly terrifying ride around Sydney I found my way to this place and took a break to try one. I compromised on the vegetarian version and didn’t eat much of the pie crust. But I do say that it was yummy. I sat on a bench like all the other locals and, like all the other locals, battled the pigeons for my meal.

From there I ventured through the sort of sex-district of Sydney (King’s Cross) and nicer suburbs (Darlinghurst, Pott’s something) and ultimately made my way to the far side of the Botanical Gardens. I rode the nice, tree-lined CAR-FREE trail around the outside, down by Mrs. MacGuire’s Chair. After that you enter the Gardens themselves and you have to walk your bike. This is when I found out that my ankle really is still bothering me. But the walk through the gardens was gorgeous and it was a lovely afternoon. I took my time and limped through. It sprinkled ever so lightly a couple of times, but mostly it was pleasantly warm without being hot and pleasantly overcast without being gloomy.

Finally the last bit of death-defying Sydney traffic – mostly pedestrian this time, around the Opera House and Circular Quay and then up through The Rocks to my hotel. All in all about a four hour ride, but I really have no idea how far and it wasn’t as much exercise as I would have liked because there was so much stop and go with the traffic along with stairs that had to be climbed and sections that had to be walked. Possibly 10 or 15 miles. Next ride I am definitely going to take the fairy to Manly Beach and ride up the beach. There is also one park where there is a bike trail about 4 miles around – but it is still a deadly ride to get there. Still with so few places to “open it up” I may resort to that.

The hotel staff were very nice about digging me up a tea-towel, plastic bag and ice for my ankle. I hauled the bike to the room, took a shower and iced my foot while catching up on email. Sacked out and woke up to discard the melted bag of ice and went right back to sleep. I was probably asleep by 8p, so getting up at 2:30a is not that bad. My rule on jet lag is to always try to get used to the time zone I’m on, but also not to fight it. Sleep when I’m sleepy, get up when I’m awake. So that explains why I am posting this blog at about 4a Tuesday morning, Sydney time.

The woman from the Sydney hash club (“Low Profile” is her hash name) that I’ve been emailing with is very nice. She has offered to take the bus with me from the city to wherever the hash is being held on Wednesday. There is also a hash with another club tonight that she invited me to go with her – it is a ferry ride over to the Queens – the QE2 and the Queen Mary are historically in Sydney together for the first time.( http://purecruises.com.au/queen-elizabeth-queen-mary-2) I’m not clear on where the hash run will take us, just that it starts with a ferry ride from Luna Park, which is an easy walk from here. http://www.lunaparksydney.com// I’m worried about my ankle and I think I’m obliged to stay at the conference for opening night festivities – but I’d really like to go on this. Maybe I’ll see if I can take the bicycle if my ankle is still bothering me. That would be good, too, because if most of these hash clubs tend to run 6 miles I will have a lot of trouble with that even when my ankle is not bothering me.

~S