When putting out the garbage bin on a Thursday night has become the highlight of the week, it may be time to gain some new perspective on life.
Sydney is a mere 275 km from Riverbend but it seems a lot more when you're stuck on a bus for five-and-a-half hours. The trick is to find a five-and-a-half-hour-thick book, curl up in your seat, and not look up until Sydney Central Station hoves into sight.
The rest is easy: check into my old watering-hole, the Blues Point Hotel, which offers accommodation at a reasonable price - see here - , and do a quick lap in the Olympic Pool before deciding what to do for the rest of the day.
points in the general direction of the Blues Point Hotel and where I used to live in 1985.
Across Lavender Bay is Luna Park and just before the bridge pylon is the Olympic Pool
Sydney is far too big a city to call home. So when I tried to settle there in 1985 after my return from overseas - not very successfully, I might add - I carved out my own little niche on this promontory overlooking Sydney Harbour and next to the Harbour Bridge and Luna Park (which is free to enter but if you want to buy a ticket for a joy ride, you'd better wear flat shoes as you'll be charged by your height ☺)
McMahons Point (or Blues Point as the lower part is called), with its many outdoor cafés, bottle shops, wine bistros, restaurants, delicatessens, fashion boutiques and antique shops, might as well be called 'Petite Paris' (or should that be 'petit'? is Paris feminine or masculine?), as Sydney is as expensive as Paris although there are still some affordable attractions around.
It's a perfect base from which to set out to conquer the Big City and to retreat to at the end of a hectic day.
(but don't be fooled: you're looking east and with perfect eye-sight you
might just be able to see a Kiwi chasing a sheep as the sun comes UP )
