Australia #7 Observations and a Walk

Walking home from a largely inside day on Thursday - with the temperature soaring to 37 degrees it seemed expedient to try and stay as air conditioned as possible - we passed a house that we often pass. Its windows were open, as they usually are, and from them came the sound of music playing and adults and children laughing and talking together, and we realised, that this, too, was not unusual. And I was reminded of what Cat had told me, that here in Sydney she has never heard an adult raise their voice to a child.

It's not that children don't challenge - on the bus back from Bondi Beach on Monday, a hot and tired little boy, still in nappies, had a mini tantrum. And it was mini, because his mother calmly and dispassionately told him to use his words to say what he needed, then quietly turned her attention away until he did so. And it was resolved. Just like that. Amazing. 

That day it wasn't only the little boy who was hot and tired. We had walked from Cat's favourite beach, Coogee - a beautiful sweep of sand, with big (to me, but not by Aussie standards) waves - eight kilometres along the coastal path to Bondi. We skirted round Gordon's Bay, loved by snorkelers and scuba divers, and stopped at Clovelly. Andy and Cat swam - there's a sort of pool there where the sides of the bay have been enclosed in walls - the sea still comes in, but it's contained and calm. Then we made our way inland slightly for a bucket of prawns for lunch. Lovely.

The walk continued along the edge of the sea, past the enormous Waverley Cemetery (based on Pere Lachaise in Paris) which reaches out towards the edge of the cliffs, past Bronte beach with its large pools, past Tamarama Beach and its surfers, along the sandstone cliffs sculpted by the sea, until around the corner is the famous Bondi Beach - full of people sunbathing and surfers catching waves. It's one heck of a walk in the heat, and quite grumpy making, but worth it.

Another day, I can't remember which, we were walking back home up the hill from Central Station. We'd probably been to Circular Quay for a beer or two. It's one of the best places in the world to drink beer on a hot afternoon. Sitting on the pavement, his hat upturned before him for loose change, was an elderly Aboriginal man. As we neared him a young girl, perhaps in her twenties, gracefully folded herself down onto the pavement facing him and began a conversation.

I like this country. I like its friendliness, its clarity, its openness. It seems to me to be a country full of hope.