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Our last morning in Sydney. Dana coaxed a late checkout from reception — not very hard as the place wasn’t very busy on a Tuesday — and we did a last hurrah walk to the Botanical Gardens and Opera House. We did finally get to see a live Kookaburra. We had heard their songs and calls so many times, but hadn’t been able to spot them in their roosts in the trees.
The gardens were beautiful and full of interesting sculptures to compliment the array of odd flora we’d never seen before. We also got up close to the Opera House and discovered that the smooth looking shell (from far away, at least) is made up of over 1 million concrete tiles imported from Sweeden.
On our way back, we stopped at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels, a Sydney must-do since 1945. The walls are plastered with pics of celebrities scarfing down a Harry’s pie (or hot dog). I enjoyed a Beef, Bacon & Cheese Pie. Dana was nonplussed that I didn’t get a veggie option, but I had offered to get her one, but she declined. Her loss! It was totally decadent.
We went back to the Highfield and checked out, and chatted with Adrian, the manager about touring and his move from Chicago to Sydney. Shortly after riding off, Dana noticed a problem with her front wheel again, and we detoured about 3 blocks to Velo Servo where Ben served us coffee while he retightened her hub while Dana minded his dog. A temporary fix, but it got us on the road again, didn’t cost that much, and we got some good coffee.
We made our way to the Circular Quay and boarded the ferry for Manly. The ferry saved a hilly ride through the Sydney suburbs, but it didn’t save us from ourselves. After disembarking in Manly, Dana wanted to look around the town. I wanted to get on with our trip to the next ferry in Palm Beach before the last ferry left at 6 PM. It was “only” 22 miles away, but I knew it was not going to be an easy 22 miles given the profile of the ride. I fumed, but reluctantly acquiesced and we walked around the town for a while before finally heading out at 3:30.
We did not make the ferry. We did make it to Avalon Beach around 5:30 a good 5 miles short of Palm Beach. We tried to find a campground, hostel, or any kind of hotel in Avalon, but came up empty. We stopped at a local pub to get a couple of beers in hope that Dana could work her charm on the locals to get a place to stay. Almost worked, but while the woman of a couple she asked was more than willing, but she got the hairy eye from her husband and all we got was a “There’s a park in Palm Beach right by the ferry wharf. You can pitch a tent there.” We did get to listen to some good, traditional Irish music played on guitar, fiddle, and button accordion though.
We scouted out the local beach, parks, and nature reserve, but realized we were not welcome there. $1,000 fine for camping in the nature reserve and not another good stealth spot in town. It was dark now, and we headed to a closed coffee shop which we had scoped out for a morning breakfast/cleanup/refresh spot. They had a picnic bench and we had a makeshift dinner with what was left in our bags. We considered just staying there for the night, but the road was busy and there really wasn’t any discreet place to sleep. So, we packed up and rode the 4 miles to Palm Beach. That took almost an hour as there were still multiple hills to be climbed.
On arriving in Palm Beach, we rode up and down the main drag checking out our options. There weren’t any. We went to the park by the ferry and since it was a nice, warm, starry night, laid out the tarp and put the sleeping bags on top for an unobstructed view. That lasted about 5 minutes before it started to sprinkle very lightly, though no rain had been forecast. We immediately jumped up and got the tent out and put it up as quickly as we could. We covered our stuff as well as we could and climbed into the tent. It wasn’t very long before a full-fledged storm hit, replete with lightning, thunder, and strong winds. The tent held, but the wind was blowing the rain up and under the fly, so we got a bit wet. Not a restful night.
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