A trip to Sydney

The view from the cafe near Mark & Janene's place — a million miles from Birdsville ....

I've been a bit distracted since the last blog, but here goes ....

A couple of weeks after the races, we had a car rally of 300 people come through Birdsville, for which Dusty was cooking dinner. The Bakery only holds about 40-50 people at best, so dinner was to be at the recently-finished, newly enlarged Wirrari Tourist Information Centre, overlooking the oval. Despite Dusty losing a lot of sleep, huge amounts of food were prepared, and we served up lots of cold roast meats and salads, three different curries and rice, and hot corned beef with baked veg. Tables and chairs were set up in the area outside, every available local was roped in to help and it all went off very well, with lots of good feedback from the rally people.

Two days later, I packed my bags and headed off to Sydney for a wedding and, two weeks after, a yacht race at Lake Macquarie. Evan was driving down for the yacht race and we would travel back together. MacAir (locally known as SlackAir) was true to form, and arrived five hours late. Luckily, I had decided to go via Mt Isa and catch the plane to Sydney the next day, rather than trust MacAir to get me to Brisbane in time to make my Sydney connection directly. All in all, it took about a day and a half to get to Sydney ....

My friends of many years, Anne and Carson, had finally decided to tie the knot after years of living together, and Anne's daughter Kate did a fabulous job of organising it at a very flash boutique hotel, The Establishment, near Circular Quay. It was a lovely wedding, and I met people I hadn't seen for years and enjoyed myself very much. I had decided to splurge and stay at the hotel, expensive but worth every cent. It was a great way to start my visit back to Sydney.

The next two weeks were a whirl of shopping, eating and socialising, and boy did I make up for lost time! I also did a barista course, and now I am a qualified barista. I stayed with friends Mark and Janene, who have a grand old terrace house just off King St, Newtown, so I was in the thick of the action. Evan arrived unexpectedly after the first week for his old skipper's wake, a sad day for him but a welcome surprise for me. We really enjoyed ourselves catching up with friends and the time went very quickly. So much to do, so little time to do it! It was great to be back in Sydney, but I was starting to miss the quiet and space of Birdsville by the time it we had to leave, not to mention the ability to park anywhere, any time ....

Neale arrived from Birdsville Friday evening, so we picked him up from the airport and headed straight up to Lake Macquarie, two hours north of Sydney, for the Heaven Can Wait 24-hour Yacht Race where we were crewing for Mark and Janene, who have a Van der Stadt 34 ft cruising yacht. Lake Macquarie is a huge waterway, four times bigger than Sydney Harbour, and we managed to get around the 28 nautical miles (approx 42 kms) course three and a half times in the 24 hours. Despite a brilliant start, we had a mediocre result (we had a huge handicap). We really enjoyed the sailing despite the cold wet weather, and breakfast of bacon and egg sandwiches prepared by Janene on the galley stove was the envy of several of the sports boats as they passed us.

The three of us jumped in the car as soon as we got off the boat on Sunday afternoon and headed straight back to Birdsville. We got as far as Gilgandra that night, through pouring rain, and set off again early the next day. We drove all the way through to Birdsville Monday, and arrived at 2.30 am Tuesday morning — a huge trip of 2,000 km in 36 hours. Driving into Birdsville in the wee small hours was strangely moving and I was quietly glad to be back ....

The rally cars lined up outside the Wirrari Centre and oval.


Tables for dinner all set up and ready to go.


Carson and Anne tie the knot with great style.


My room at The Establishment — what luxury!


Learning the tricks of the trade at the barista course.


Janene gets things into order on the bow of Windchaser.


Umbakumba, another Balmain boat, finally overtakes us again after we have held them off for about four hours.


Skipper Mark (second left) and crew still in good spirits after 24 hours of wet and cold racing.