June 11

Today, I slept in until 11 AM, only to be woken up by a text message from a friend asking when we should meet up. By accident, my friend from Brisbane would be in Sydney with his wife and parents at the same time as myself. Knowing this, I had bought vouchers on groupon sufficient for 6 desserts at Movenpick, an upmarket ice cream parlour with some locations scattered around Australia.

Before this meeting though, I went down to the legendary Bondi beach. At a frigid 21 C (70F), the beach was relatively empty. There were only a few sunbathers, and those in the water were exclusively surfers. As a native New Yorker, I went for a swim, local custom be damned. I found the water temp more pleasant than the Atlantic during a Long Island summer, to be honest.



After a 45 minute swim, I cleaned myself up and went shopping. While I originally only intended to buy a surge protector for use on the Indian Pacific and Ghan trains, I somehow ended up in David Jones buying a Ralph Lauren button down. At $62.25, it was a relative steal.

After returning to the hotel and freshening up, I was on my way...again to Bondi beach to meet my friend's party. I had elected to buy a "my multi" pass ($22 ) for Sydney's transport system, giving me unlimited travel, so I could make such repetitive journeys at my pleasure. NYC had a similar unlimited daily metrocard, but I seem to recall it being phased out.

Anyway, I met them and excitedly we decided on pre-dinner ice cream at 4:30pm. I have a non-existent sweet tooth (I last ate dessert in mid-March), but when I do take something sweet, I want the best. The groupon voucher (aka food stamps for the middle class) allowed one to choose any dessert on the menu. The 5 of us (friend, his wife, his parents, myself) each chose a dessert (pancakes with strawberry & cream ice cream, waffles with two kinds of chocolate, coffee with 2 kinds of coffee, etc) and the 6th was a tasting platter.

My friend's wife had to cut her journey short to go back to work in BNE, so we accompanied her by train as far as Central station on her way back to the airport. The plan was (for us) to look for dinner near Central station. As the parents despise Chinese, we had a problem. They are typical British seniors: the more authentic the Chinese food is, the worse. So of course we were effectively in Chinatown. His parents had grown tired, so I decided to offer an easy solution.

We ended up in my hotel at the bar. Shockingly, the prices were excellent for Sydney and offered an acceptable variety of pub meals. A burger & chips was on special at $10 and included a free soft drink. The craft beer on tap was $5.50 for a schooner. Regular prices were $12-15 for a meal. In return for dessert, my meal was comped. The father was especially happy to find a sub-$35 dollar meal. As an economics lecturer at the University of Glasgow, he is unsurprisingly value-conscious.

June 12:

Today I am packing for a 3pm departure on the Indian Pacific. I will travel 4,352km/2,698mi. As the departure moved from weeks to now mere hours away, I feel incredibly justified about buying a proper berth vs a recliner seat. Total travel time will be 68 hours if all proceeds without delay. Wish me luck.