Corellas, cars, red moons, seafood, Sydney

With Autumn just around the corner a lot of our local trees are going to seed. We got this great close up view of a bunch of Corellas (a sub-species of Cockatoos) the other morning, feeding off the juicy fruit of a Pistachio tree in one of our local parks.

We're getting ready to replace our 15 year old trusty VW Golf GTD. We're not going fully EV yet but we think a hybrid seems to be the way to go. We've been narrowing our choices down to this model ..... and will we buy a white one ?......

...... or this speccy yellow?

-- or some other colour entirely? Stay posted on this one.

We've had a short stay in Sydney this week - checking out car dealerships and enjoying a night out at the theatre, along with other things .........

On Tuesday night we met up with Gabrielle for an early dinner at Bayly's Bistro at our fave Ensemble Theatre in Kirribilli. We saw a David Williamson play "The Social Ladder" after dinner and enjoyed the humour, social commentary and deft one liners typical of this playwright. I led Rob down to the Ensemble Theatre the long way but at least we could enjoy the refined real estate viewing along the streets of this harbourside suburb in the process. 

Walking home after our night out, along Coogee Bay Road we got this brilliant view of tonight's red moon. Perfect timing (completely unplanned) on our part!

Wednesday we set out to visit the new $800 + million Sydney Fish Market in Blackwattle Bay, Glebe (on an adjacent wharf to the old markets). We took the Light Rail from Randwick to Central and from Central to Wentworth Park, an easy trip but crowded on this day. It's a short walk from the Light Rail stop to the site of the new market.

We were very impressed with this awesome seafood destination with over 40 retail outlets offering every variation on a seafood theme. 

That sashimi grade Bluefin Tuna in the pic below is for sale at $299.99/kilo!

But there is a big range of food on offer - and price points.

Sashimi grade abalone anyone?

An amazing array of nigiri at Getfish (we have a Getfish outlet in Coogee too).....

There are beautiful dessert options too: gelati at the Cow & the Moon and these wonderful dark chocolate dipped fresh figs from Fruitezy (I was over the moon about these).

There are cooking classes available, tours and obviously more formal lecture programs too. The young people gathered for this lecture looked to be post high school age???

With all that choice we ended up with some beautiful quality sushi (!) eaten in a quiet little corner we found at the back of this huge retail space. It was way too hectic for us today to find a sit down space to eat one of the more elevated lunch offerings.

On the way back to Coogee we got off at the Pyrmont Bay Light Rail stop and enjoyed a cooling ale at the historic old Pyrmont Bridge Hotel .......

... before making our way down to the Pyrmont Ferry back to Circular Quay.

It has been a few years since we've been around this wharf area. I enjoyed seeing the old Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse (from the Great Barrier Reef) relocated to this position back in 1987, probably the last time we were around Pyrmont Wharf).

...and the old HMB Endeavour Replica ......

The ferry ride from Pyrmont to Circular Quay is a total joy!!

And it was nice to see the stately old Queen Mary 2 berthed at the overseas passenger terminal rather than the more hulking modern monstrosities that are usually parked there.

Despite the clouds we did our usual coastal walk yesterday morning before heading back to Canberra. We always love checking out the current state of our (Coogee) Honeycomb each visit.

Abi is 14

This girl has just had her fourteenth birthday and what an amazing young person she is growing into ...... 

.. the absolute BEST horse owner/ jumper we know - living her best life with Sammy, and the rest of the family right behind her, supporting her passion .......

She's a natural born teacher, a great martial artist, a bit of a rev head (like her Dad), making great progress at school now she's in year nine, and did I mention she's an absolute character as well??

How to sum up all that in one birthday card?

I made her fave batch of cupcakes for the occasion....

.... and we had a great dinner out at "Italian and Sons" last night - where Abi proved her true carnivore worth!

... and dessert afterwards at Goodberry's Belconnen (Abi's choice of course).

We're so lucky to have known this girl for the last 14 years. Happy birthday Abi girl!

And a postscript to those celebrations:

Sammy scored well with Abi's birthday too - new noise cancelling ear bonnets, a new saddle blanket and a new leather halter too - all very fancy ready for the next show! 

He's even got a new fly mask too, extra hard for horses to remove it is said (we'll see). Abi and Sammy tried out all the new birthday gear yesterday afternoon out at Freshford. Sammy seemed to like everything!

Girls with their horses + a grazing kangaroo in the background.

Tugun

Being invited to David and Ro's wedding on the Gold Coast gave us the opportunity to stay at Tugun Beach for the first time. Tugun is around 5klm north of Kirra where we've stayed on previous visits and a much quieter area than the buzzy Kirra - Coolangatta area.  

David and Ro booked us into a beautiful big unit facing out to the Pacific Ocean. This is the view that greeted us the afternoon we arrived. 

The weather turned more unstable by the third day of our visit but the outlook from our unit was always pretty amazing no matter how many clouds in the sky or how much rain was falling.

We went for a long beach walk on our first morning  after we arrived with David and Ro and David's sister and partner.

The coastal path on the other hand extends all the way from Currumbin to Kirra and it gets a lot of use too (including from us on this visit).

We walked to Currumbin Creek a few times along the beach. Its a great learn to surf spot for the young ones in the protected surf break leading into the creek inlet.

We had a couple of swims off the beach outside our unit. The water temperature was perfect as far as I was concerned (27oC!) but the seas got rougher as the more unstable weather blew in.

We enjoyed our stay in Tugun so much, even aside from all the wedding celebrations and excitement, that we have booked another 5 night stay later in the year (end of April!).

For the record, other notable events during our trip to Tugun for David and Ro's wedding were - getting my first gel nail mani-pedi (along with Ro) at Angel Care Nails in Burleigh.....

....... and recording this image of Lake George on our drive back to Canberra on Wednesday afternoon, showing the extent of recent water loss in the "lake". At this rate it will be disappearing altogether in a matter of months. The lake filled to its most recent high level by December 2021 after a 20 year dry patch. Looks like we may be heading for another notable dry lake phase again.....