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Luna Park and Harbour Bridge

Feeling at home. We are in Sydney for more than six months now. Many peculiarities of this country in general and of this city in particular which we mentioned in our first monthly reports have meanwhile become a habit to us and we don't mention them any more. We no longer report each and every penguin we meet in Sydney Harbour, we are now familiar with the various characters of the native birds and know that we have to guard our steaks on the BBQ from kookaburras and magpies. Similarly, we establish certain preferences for our week-end activities. Many trips are simply so fascinating that we are keen to repeat them. Thus, this month, we will report our repeating undertakings.

Maggie, the Golden Retriever

Dog sitting. Maggie is a Golden Retriever puppy of changing age (at the time of editing: 4 months) and so soft, fluffy, playful, and sweet that she took our hearts by storm. Maggie belongs to our neighbours Dawn and Dave, and Claudia has qualified as a reliable dog-sitter, sometimes assisted by Bine. It is amazing how many people talk to you in the streets when you walk a dog! And there certainly is a reason why dog owners are said to stay fit.Claudia's and Bine's longest walk so far was 12 km long and aimed at the famous Café "The Bones", a Café which offers not only coffee and cake, but also pig ears and bones... However, when we arrived there on a Monday afternoon, we had to learn that "The Bones" has only open on week-ends. Bine's mood suddenly drops and Claudia has to pay her off with an ice coffee in another Café (5 km further away). Maggie actually calmes down with increasing walking distance, but she is a good girl and keeps on walking (which is lucky, since who would like to carry a 15 kg dog over several km?). Nevertheless, after the coffee break, all three decide to repeat these trips.

Our beloved paddle trip into the Lane Cove

Kayaking up the Lane Cove. In both months August and September we paddled up the Lane Cove and reported of it. After we had put Siegfried into our kayak in October and he had enjoyed it so much that he didn't return until two hours later, he incited us to buy a second kayak to finally allow us to paddle together instead of one after another. This second sea kayak is delivered on November 21. During the first test paddle in the evening after sunset, Claudia tells Peter about Martha's death – we won't mention any details here in the Internet. We yet again – but the first time together – paddled up the Lane Cove on Saturday, November 23. Since we are meanwhile familiar with the winds, we started early in the morning, at 8:15 am we were already on the water. We were strongly rewarded for this early start: The water flat like a mirror, not the slightest wind apparent. The sky was cloudy, but at 28°C we didn't mind (by the way: two days later the thermometer rose to 40°C). As well, we were paddling through rain for about 2 hours – quite nice in this heat! We were astonished of the traffic in the Lane Cove on an early Saturday in summer: We met dozens of paddlers going down or up with us. Countless rowers were almost blocking the waterway. Some crews sang galley songs to push up their motivation. One could nearly say that every row boat in Sydney was on the water that day. To summarize, there was a fantastic atmosphere on the water. At the far end of the cove, we were all on our own, as expected. After our traditional BBQ next to the water in the National Park we returned and reached home at 3:30 pm. What we did in the evening? See the next paragraph.

Enjoy! – But better avoid to wear a white shirt...

Dining out with vouchers. Eating out is cheaper in Australia than it is in Germany. However, we have a trick to further reduce the cost: the Entertainment Guide. This is a book with hundreds of reduction vouchers: Sydney Aquarium, Sydney Symphony, Helicopter Flights,... Nevertheless, its main focus is on eating and it contains countless vouchers for restaurants. There are two types of vouchers: "Buy one Main Course get one Main Course free" or "25% off the total bill". We have grown very fund of exploring each week one of the various suburbs of Sydney based on these vouchers. Therefore, we take all the vouchers of the specific suburb (which is easy since there is a "locality index") and walk the streets up and down until we have defined our favourite place for dinner. Our approach reminds us the exploration of a city based on a detective novel where one walks into a specific street since the novel sets a murder at this place or the detective has a shrewd idea here. Like this, we have already discovered some gorgious bars and restaurants which we might never have found otherwise. Positive side effect: Meanwhile, we have got a much broader overview over the various suburbs and know the lively streets in most places.

Rigging "Bad Habits"

Sailing. One could think that we would feel a certain saturation in our eagerness to sail. Far from it! Just as before, the fourtnightly sailing race is a fix part of our diary. Even more: Since the time was switched to day light savings and the whole city got in summer mood, we sail more than ever. Apart from the Sunday dinghi sailing, we more and more oftenly hop onto yachts. Sometimes just for fun with friends (example: to spend a day on the water with Elke and Siegfried) and in any case the Friday Twilights: A weekly race that starts at 6:00 pm until darkness. After a week in the office, there is nothing better than to hop onto a boat to get rid of the stress and to enjoy the colourful sunset over the city. If moreover, one sails well enough to catch an award in the instance of a bottle of wine or two bottles of beer – even better...