25 Things I Love About Sydney – Part 2

Yesterday I was waxing lyrical about the first five of the 25 I love best about Sydney. Here’s numbers six – ten. Enjoy!

6. The Dangerous Animals 

Harmless, but huge, a carpet python slithers across our street.

It’s a thrill to see spiders in the pool and pythons crossing the road.  Spiders and snakes can be deadly here in Australia, and I love that we live cheek by jowl with some of the most poisonous critters on the planet.

Mind you, I love best that we’ve never been bitten by one.  Also that we live in the Big Smoke and the hospitals are very close indeed.

There was a brown snake at the kids’ school not so long ago. Thrills and spills.

It makes the British hedgehogs and robins seem terribly tame, love a bit of frontier spirit in the city.  

And don’t remind me of the sea lice, leeches and blue bottles!

7. The Great Australian Backyard Pool

For the last five years we have LOVED having our own backyard pool.

It wears the children out, simple as that. There’s nothing like watching them all leap in and out and throw themselves around. 

Occasionally a small trampoline gets dragged in to add a bit of danger. Of course it’s also a splendid spot for cooling down when it’s bloody hot in Sydney.

8. Peter Corris’s Cliff Hardy Detective Novels

Given as a gift by a friend for a birthday at least 20 years ago, these novels have delighted me ever since. They make a great gift for people who come to visit too.

Cliff Hardy is a totally hard-boiled Sydney private investigator, with a love for intrigue, women and the bevvy.

There are now over 35 books. Cliff has changed a lot over the years and a few women friends have come and gone.

The city and suburbs of Sydney are a main character in the books, seen with a somewhat jaundiced eye, with no pretension spared.

Secretly, I fancy the pants off Cliff Hardy… shhhh… don’t tell.

 9. The Eastern Suburbs Beaches

I only lived at Tamarama for four months in 1987 – 1988 before a job at Channel 9 meant it was easier to shift over to the North Shore.

It was a shame to leave those gorgeous Eastern Suburbs beaches. Those first months were really formative. I got to know Bondi really well and hung out a lot with a photographer friend there.

My pals and I walked from one end of the Eastern Suburbs beaches to the other and spent loads of time at Coogee and Clovelly.

When babies came along, we learned the joys of Bronte, the beach in the photo above, it’s quite rightly famed as kid central.

10. The Northern Beaches

In my early years here in Sydney a trip up to Palm Beach was a major undertaking and quite rarely done.

Cut to 25 years later and we live in the Forest area of Sydney, so our nearest beach is Dee Why and we’re often down at Collaroy too, as seen in photo above.

We also frequent Freshwater, and Manly, and up at Mona Vale, and further up at Avalon and sometimes over at the Pittwater beaches.

The Northern Beaches are now our playground and we’re so, so lucky to have such amazing outdoor spaces so close.

Five more things I love about Sydney coming tomorrow and Thursday and Friday.

It’s startling to think it’s been so many years since my first footstep onto Aussie soil.

What a lot of fun has been had!

Would love to hear of your very favourite things about Sydney.

 This was 25 Things I Love About Sydney – Part 2….. find  Part 1 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here and Part 5 here.