Sydney December 2025

 

 

Thursday Dec 11 - Day 17

Not sure what I ate or drank but couldn’t fall asleep til 3am. Bizarre.

Slow morning. Coffee and Toast. Out the door to run errands for an hour then starting taping 3 rooms to prep for Friday painting at my sister/brother-in-laws house in Cronulla/ South Sydney.

Wall patching, sanding, cleaning and all the things for the rest of the day.

Bbq burgers for supper! Yum!

Quick trip to Bunnings - Australia’s Home Depot. Everything has underground parking as they don’t have Alberta space like we do. Really enjoyed the Travelator - moving sidewalk/escalator thingy.

Loaded up on paint supplies and a giant pail of paint and back to Fernleigh street for a couple more hours of taping/prepping for #AussiePaintFest2025 tomorrow.

Friday Dec 12 - Day 18.

Up at 5am. Painting by 6.

Grilled cheese for 10 min lunch at 1pm. 20 min supper at 630. Finished painting at 830. Shower. Card games outside at 845-10. Long day. Yellow house now White. Phew.

Sat Dec 13 - day 19

Everyone gets up at 5 AM in this house. Painting by 6 AM. Done by noon. House looks freaking amazing.

Lunch and a quick relax before heading out for lunch at a crazy Portuguese chicken restaurant called Franco’s.

Golf from 230 till 7pm. Knocked it out of the park and destroyed my three golf partners.

Supper and evening gathering at friends of my hosts on the water in one of the local bays. Too much wine and crawled home at 10:30 PM. Another fantastic day in Cronulla South Sydney. 

Sunday Dec 14 - Day 20

Already!

Everyone gets up at 5am 7 days a week. Wow. Stumble out of bed. Inhale toast and into the car headed for Wanda beach in East Cronulla or

South Sydney. Thousands of people out and about before 7am enjoying the warm weather.

Down and into the ocean.

Wow - these waves are huge. Lifeguards everywhere. Several speeches from mates on how to swim and not die. Oh joy.

Out into the ocean a hundred meters or so.

Between the sunscreen running off my bald head into my eyes, waves pounding you every 5-7 seconds, diving into the huge waves to avoid surfers going right over top of you, seriously, and then 6ft4 Marty body surfing right at you, it’s an awful lot to process all at once. And the waves never stop. And the surfers never stop. And the body surfers never stop. It’s a lot.

40 minutes and I was done. Phew. Survived.

Lay on the beach and said a couple prayers of Thanksgiving and dry off.

All of Devin’s mates come

In and we grab a coffee and BS for half an hour before heading home for breakfast and more house chores.

Relaxing afternoon in the pool and finishing a book. Fantastic supper followed by huge windstorm and then the tragic news of the Bondi Beach mass shooting a mere 20kms away. Many hours of watching the footage and praying for the Australian people as they deal with this immense tragedy. 

Monday, Dec 15 - Day 21

5am. Sun’s been up for an hour. Someone is  unloading the dishwasher. Guess it’s time to get up!

Let’s do an abbreviated version of the day with longer descriptions in the photos/videos.

Breakfast. Out the door. Onto the local train. 1 hour ride to Circular Quay, Sydney.

Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Canadian Consulate.

Rock Museum.

Walking tour of Sydney Circular Quay.

Starbucks lunch and 2 hour zoom meeting.

90-minute parliament tour.

One hour walking/people watching.

2 hours Royal Botanical Gardens.

One hour Sydney Library/Art Gallery.

One hour Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral.

One hour walk around Sydney Opera House/restaurants.

One hour train ride home. 45 minute walk home from the train station with another 15 minutes to help buddy fix his van.

28335 steps.

Tylenol. Ibuprofen. Band-Aids on foot blisters.

Bed.

Thank you Sydney for an amazing day. 

First view out the train door is the giant looming Sydney Harbour Bridge overlooking the Sydney Opera House! Amazing!

Overcast with light showers, keeping it nice and cool. Phew.

First order of business- hike up that big hill and over the bridge and back.

Said Good Morning to 50 people in my bright red Canada golf Shirt.

Boys Private School under the far end of the bridge. 30 of them running the bridge following their coach. I cheered them all on as they went by and most yelled thank you but one kid yelled THANKS CANADA! lol

On the way back, they saw me coming and started chanting CAN-A-DA CAN-A-DA and I got a bunch of high 5s. Good lads they were.

Visited a security lady working the bridge to make sure there aren’t any jumpers. Literally One jumped yesterday. It’s a thing here.

Noticed a Canada sign on a building, so I stopped in and visited a couple of dignitaries and said hello.

Wandered through a rock

Museum and all over the steep hills of Sydney Harbour watching the ferries come and go before heading to Starbucks for 50% off lunch and a 2 hour zoom meeting with the Calgary Ukrainian Festival head honchos. The 16th annual festival is less than 6 months away! Out on the street to mingle with all the Christmas shoppers in the hustle and bustle of Circular Quay, Sydney.

Off for a Parliament tour of New South Wales. Based on the British Commonwealth system. Adelaide was nice, but this was off the charts.

Lower House of Commons green. 93 members. 60000 voters for each of the 93 areas

Labour Party in power - minority with 46 seats. You need 47 - so they

chose an independent as house speaker - Mr. Piper - who coincidentally showed up during the tour to say hello. Saw my Canada shirt and reminisced when Tony Abbott arrived in Canada and made a speech in parliament under Stephen Harper’s time and said how glad he was to be in CANADIANA - whoops. Rhodes scholar faux pas.

Upper House of Lords all red. 42 members. 15 Labour seats hold the power. 13 in opposition. The rest independents like the Farm and Family, Green Party, etc. Independents have a lot of power here with minority governments.

Found some peace in the Royal Botanical Gardens, walking around for a couple of hours. So many beautiful areas with every plant imaginable.