Sunday, February 04, 2007

Swimming in Gordons Bay

Yesterday I flew from Brisbane to Sydney to meet up with Cibbuano and enjoy a day - a Jack Bauer kind of day that steadily ticked on for 24 hours and showed no signs of slowing down.

He dropped by the Radisson on Liverpool, and we exchanged secret gang signs under the whir of an overhead monorail.

After grabbing some Chinese dimsum that was delicious but barely tolerable by my then alchohol weakened stomach (my last night in Brisbane was intense), and following that up with a refreshing honey milk tea, I started to slowly regain my strength. With the colour returing to my face, we hopped into his Falcon and headed down Anzac Parade to Alison Road, final destination: Gordons Bay.

The view of the bay from the cliffs above was beautiful. This was truely a little gem that C & R had found. Unlike Bondi Beach or the other popular places to be seen in the sun, Gordons Bay is a sheltered alcove that focuses more on the beauty of nature than the beauty of Aussie metermaids.

Once I was out in the water, I felt amazing. I also realized how incredibly lucky people are in Australia's coastal cities to be able to access nature this way.

After that highlight of the day, Cibbuano showed me his diner, and while he worked I took a walk up and down Oxford street. There were a ton of cool restaurants and stores, unfortunately most of them were closed but I did manage to get a really nice bottle of wine at a little boutique shop called "The Five Cellars".

With work out of the way, we checked out the local pubs until 2am, picked up his girlfriend, and then set out for Kings Cross. A requisite of hitting "the Cross" is indulging in the vice supplied everywhere, and indulge we did until 3:30am.

When I got back to my suite, I had 2 hours of sleep to look forward to before checking out of the hotel and checking in at the Sydney International Terminal to start my multi-day journey. Actually with the time zone magic involved in crossing the date-line, my trip back consisted of only one day (Sunday) but easily consumed more than 32 hours. Take that Jack!

Cibbuano's take on the day can be found here.

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