Palm Beach

This past Sunday, Deb and I took a daytrip up to Palm Beach (Map). It took us about an hour and a half to get there by bus. We took the train from Edgecliff station just a few blocks from our apartment to Town Hall in downtown Sydney, and walked a couple blocks from there to catch the L90 bus to Palm Beach. It was a fun bus ride that gave us a glimpse into a bunch of the other beach towns along the way.

We arrived at about noon, and stepped off the bus onto a small road with some cute shops and cafes, and a wide view of the orange-tinted sandy beach just a few steps away. We walked down to the water, and over to one end of the beach where we found a salt-water swimming pool that reminded us of the pools in Cape Town. There were some great tide pools in the rocks on the way up to the pool, and we met some friendly little crabs.

At about that point I could no longer fend of the sun-fear, and so retreated to some thick tree-shade for a sunblocking session while Deb made a beeline for a sunny layout on the sand.

After about 15 minutes, we rejoined and walked the other direction down the beach, up onto a grassy hill near a golf course, to a craft faire we’d noticed on the bus ride in. We were hoping the faire would offer food too, but when it became clear that it did not, we settled for patronizing a slightly more permanent kiosk adjacent to the faire. It was here that we discovered a truly excellent pumpkin salad that we plan to reverse engineer at some point. (Initial analysis provided some insight, but further experimentation will be necessary.)

After our lunch adventure we returned to the beach to digest, read and swim. The weather had unfortunately spent its lunch break cooling down and kick starting the wind machine, so the water became a bit less of a draw. But we had a good little swim anyway. The sea floor was very uneven. In a couple of steps the ground could rise or drop a good 3 feet. So the waves were a bit unpredictable, but I managed to body surf a few.

After a good long read, and some snacking on the best-ever dried mango (hand-packaged sundried mango from our tiny, local health food store), we packed back up for a bit more exploring.

We walked across the skinny peninsula to the calm river/bay beach on the other side, which reminded me of our honeymoon on turtle island with the lush, hilly terrain sprouting up from sandy beaches. This side of the peninsula was protected from the wind, which was really nice after laying in wind for a few hours.

As the sun was setting, we started climbing up the hill at the end of the peninsula towards the lighthouse. It was a 500 meter walk that claimed to be a 20 minute hike. That seemed ridiculous until we realized that the 500 meters failed to inform us of the probably 200 meter vertical climb that came along with it. But as we gained altitude it just got prettier and prettier. A giant boulder near the summit was the site of a spectacular view that led me to believe that this was secretly the real destination and that the lighthouse was just a decoy. But the lighthouse was on a great spot too, and included a view across the bay and out into the open ocean.

We had a nice hike back down, and caught the bus back home, during which we listened to an RadioLab NPR podcast about the current understanding of the expanse of or universe, universes in general, and the swiss cheese multiverse.

Check out the rest of the photos from our trip on deb’s picasaweb photo page.