Thursday 2nd
We were still at Athol Bay, and the Meade’s were off to catch up with some of their other friends today.
We dropped them off to shore so they could catch the ferry back into the city. Hugs and goodbyes for everyone - we’ll see them again on the boat when we’re a long way north of here!
It was a bit overcast today, which made it a good day to walk around the zoo. A very short ride in the tender, a set of steps up from the beach and we were inside Taronga Zoo.
We failed at getting into see any actual shows as it was really busy, and we were taking it slow.
We more or less saw everything there was to see. Emma was excited to see the Capybara, and both girls loved the Red Panda and the big African animals.
By 5pm we were spent and needed to get back on the boat to relax. It took us a while to get out past the gift shop (one toy Capybara and tiger in tow).
When we got down to the tender we found some #@$%heads had flipped it upside down :( It was padlocked to a tree and the engine padlocked on. It started up 1st go and doesn’t seem to have had any lasting physical damage (only a little mental anguish).
Back on board and one of the many party boats (~35ft cat) turned up with a dozen or so young guests. Lots of loud music, and lots of posing for photos. Good entertainment for us knowing they only have a few hours of charter and weren’t hanging around all night.
One of the revellers exclaimed: “this is even better than NYE”.
Friday 3rd
After a BIG few days, we all needed a bit of a day off from doing anything. We moved to a free mooring to reset our 24hr time limit and that’s as much boating as we did that day.
However, Andrew was in Sydney, so we invited him onboard for breakfast - he came bring baked delights.
Great to catch up with him even if it was brief.
The rest of the day I spent catching up on blogs from the last two weeks.
We eventually persuaded the girls to leave the boat at 3pm, and went in to walk out to the end of Bradleys Head, and do the loop back around past Athol Hall.
The B14’s (dingy) were having their nationals (and then followed by the worlds).
We went for a swim on the beach, but it was low tide and we discovered a lot of broken glass. We spent about 10min picking it up, then swam a bit further down away from the rocks.
Saturday 4th
We’d been in Athol Bay since midnight of the 30th, so figured it was time to move somewhere else in the harbour.
We the winds light and mostly NE, we motored across to “Milk Beach”, which is between Rose Bay and Watson Bay (it’s out from Strickland House).
We picked up one of the public moorings and got sorted to do some walking. We got in the tender and looked for somewhere to come ashore that had somewhere secure to lock it up.
The end of “Hermit Beach” had a ramp of sorts and a dingy storage rack that looked ideal. We only discovered the oyster covering when we got out (no injuries).
With the tender high and dry and locked up, we walked up to Strickland House to have a look at that. An Uber then whisked us away up to Camp Cove so we could do the walk to South Head.
It’s only about 700m each way, and we were lucky enough to have good views of the headlands; and unlucky enough to cop some unsightly views of the “clothing optional beach” along the way.
The light here, “Hornby Lighthouse” had been very prominent when coming into through the Heads at night on the 30th.
We hiked back into Camp Cove, then up the hill to start the clifftop walk down towards Macquarie Lighthouse. We got just past that to the park and we reached our limit of walking (~5km) so stopped in the park for a good 30min.
We’d promised the girls ice cream, but with no shops insight we ended up walking to Woolies to do a quick shop and get ice creams there.
Uber back to the beach to enjoy our ice creams where we had tied up the tender (thankfully still the correct way up!).
We took the groceries back to the boat and got changed for a quick swim in at Milk Beach. Plenty of foreign tourists there.
By 5pm we were cold and ready for sip’s ‘n dips. Just about to crack open a beer when the wind came up, and more from the North. It was going to be a bit uncomfortable here, so we left that mooring and headed back to Athol Bay, which is great in the Northerlies.
We scored a mooring straight up, so got stuck into the beer with minimal disruption.
More evening entertainment from another party boat.
Sunday 5th
Woke up and saw another mooring was vacant, so we jumped onto that.
Kristie had tried booking the Bridge Climb the night before, but it wasn’t going through online. They opened at 9am, so shortly after that we were locked in for a 12:25 climb.
Being a Sunday with blue skies and not much wind, the bay/beach got busy very quickly. We took the tender into the beach just near our boat (and more public) and locked it up to the national park sign.
A quick walk and ferry and we were in Circular Quay. We had some time to kill so walked around to get a photo of us with the Opera House in the background.
We had to try several times before we could find someone who could take reasonable photos (one lady had cut Emma out of the photo altogether!)
Quick packed lunch before getting to the bridge climb and filling in forms.
We were lucky and had a fun guide, and there were 3 other kids on our walk: we didn’t see any on the other walks immediately before or after us - good timing.
We had great weather, and a marvellous view from the top - yes we could spot Lazuli on the way up: being blue she stands out from all the white boats around her :)
We had a voucher to use at The Squire’s Landing. Despite a cruise ship being in port, it was still ok to look back at the bridge. Early dinner there before getting one of the last ferries back to Athol Bay (that ferry only really runs when the zoo is open).
We then moved inside as we thought rain was coming:
Monday 6th
The girls had declared Monday was going to be a “rest day”.
After a bit of hassling/prompting from my dad, I finally got around to getting my fishing rod out. The braid on mine was a bit heavy, so I ended up using one of the girls new rods.
Back in November I’d booked to stay at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia for three nights from Boxing Day onwards (I’d assumed we’d be down there!).
However, back in Yamba when we knew we weren’t going to make it I’d opted to have the booking changed to the 6/7/8th Jan (the marina has been really good to deal with). CYCA is just the otherside of the harbour from Athol Bay.
We were about to head for a swim with a guy from another smaller boat came over and said they were off to the zoo, and if we could call him (he gave us his business card) if it looked like they were starting to drag anchor.
We countered that with a “we’re leaving in an hour, how about you have our mooring?”. That suited them, and we ended up having a good chat with him about stuff to see in Broken Bay / Pittwater (where they are from) and an offer to catch up when we get there!
We had a quick swim, then back to the boat and cast off the mooring at pretty much 10am on the dot. They were ready with boat hook out - you gotta be quick as other boats pounce as soon as they see you starting to leave.
We got to the marina with fenders and lines ready. Thankfully nobody was in the other side of our allotted pen - I’m don’t think I would have got in as the berths are narrow: we’d have less than a small fender space between us and another Lazuli!
We (Kristie) caught up on a few weeks worth of washing, and I had a few boat jobs/cleaning to do.
Noteably, our fridge was in dire need of defrosting: it nearly had an inch of ice around the top freezer/cooling compartment!
I followed up with a trip to Woolies while the girls were on their devices and Kristie had a nap - it was up hill all the way, which meant downhill on the return.
The girls only left the boat to go have a shower.
Tuesday 7th
Kristie had booked tickets to Sea Life the night before. The 10:45am slot was the cheapest, and also most convenient for us (cheaper Uber out of peak rush hour).
We had a quick walk on Prymont Bridge before heading in at 10:30.
We were all really impressed with Sea Life. It was busy, but the displays and variety of sea life was great (doesn’t beat diving!).
I think we enjoyed it more than Taronga Zoo, but I guess we are more sea inclined anyway (the girls are part mermaid).
Our highlights:
- the Dugong pit - one of only 2 Dugong’s in captivity.
- Seahorses
- Penguins
- Large fish tanks - fish + rays + GNS
The penguin cruise - you have to queue for about 30min for a 2min boat ride… we weren’t in a rush so didn’t bother us.
We ended up taking 3.5hrs to get through.
Walked home via Pitt Street (shopping), Hyde Park, and Kings Cross.
We’d lost 2 items the day before - the head for my electric shaver (I was tapping the hair out and tapped the head to the bottom of Athol Bay), and one of the tender tie down straps came loose and ended up in the same spot :(
I got the replacement for my shaver easily, but had no luck for the strap: I tried the chandlery here but the recent Sydney to Hobart start had left them depleted of a few items!
Back to the boat for a drizzly/raining afternoon/evening.
Wednesday 8th
The day started off overcast, but no rain. Running gear on, I managed a 5km run along the footpath along Rushcutters Bay, and around Rushcuttesr Bay Park.
Kristie had booked a show at the Opera House: we were off to see “Josephine wants to dance” at 10:30am. We’re finding that Ubering is much more convenient than walking/public transport for the four of us.
It’s only $15 or so to get into the city.
We were all dressed up when the rain started. It was only light, so we left the umbrellas on the boat much to Kristina’s protests (she turned out to be right!).
We had to use the walkway underneath to avoid the rain.
The show was fun, only 45min or so.
We had a quick packed lunch while avoiding the rain and expensive food.
Though it was raining, we headed up for a quick photo in front of the Opera House.
Another Uber to the Art Gallery as the girls wanted to do the kids crafting for a bit. I walked around and enjoyed the free sections.
A final Uber back to the boat to hang up wet cloths.
This is our last night in the CYCA marina. We’ll make good use of the facilities here before we leave:
- washing
- fuel
- water
- shopping
The rest of the week and most of the next week looks to be wet. Sprinkled with a mix of wind from SE and then from NE we’re not sure where we’ll end up tomorrow or after.
