Pretendy surfing on Bondi

Our penultimate day was mostly taken up with trying to see and surf the famous Bondi Beach. If you’ve ever seen a beach advertised in Oz it’s more than likely that it’s Bondi. This is one of the most used stretches of sand in Australia due to its proximity to Sydney. Thankfully, arriving a short bus ride after leaving the city, we stepped onto the beachfront to find most of the sun-seeking Sydneysiders finding alternative pleasure indoors with only a hardy few bikini clad girls populating the windswept beach. Forgoing the sunbathing we met up with our host and decided on a short walk across the sand before retreating to the shelter of a cafe and a decent hot chocolate to plan our next move.

Stomachs freshly warmed with the ingested chocolat chaud we headed to one of the surprisingly few board hire shops in Bondi. After walking up to the counter and getting along merrily with the process of hire when the shop assistant turned to us as though remembering something and informed us that we would need to leave an insurance deposit of either our passports or a credit card. We don’t carry our passports around for fear of loss and would never advise that anyone carry their passports around or leave them for a deposit, not big and definitely not clever. As for the credit card thankfully we haven’t yet succumbed to that form of plastic cash. She did however suggest an easy alternative; that we leave $400 as a cash deposit. Each. Errrr no. Thus rejected we hung our heads and as a poor substitute dipped our feet in the sea and pretended to surf.

Make believe over we headed back to the city and the interesting police museum. The police museums that we have been in so far have been some of the most interesting and best put together and so we were looking forward to this museum visit with anticipation. And whilst it was not the best offering it was not misplaced anticipation. Due to bad timing we did have to run around the museum and that was sad as there was so much to see and do. There was so much information packed into such a small space from the old court-room to the room full of murder weapons it was an engaging, if sometimes grisly, experience. We do however wish that it had followed Brisbane’s lead and put in some more stories about individual interesting crimes as opposed to a, at times, general outlook on the formation and history of Sydney’s police.

Today was our final day and it’s been sad to have to say goodbye to such a wonderful city. We spent the morning and a large chunk of the afternoon wandering the beautiful boulevards of Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens. Whilst it was a truly incredible place we did however feel that it wasn’t on the same level as the gardens in Melbourne feeling more like a park than a tended to garden. Don’t however let this put you off as it is still an amazing place to see and spend the morning. There is one part of it that is definitely superior to Melbourne’s offering though in that it holds the Government House – the governor’s house through the ages. The only way you can get inside is by booking in advance one of the tours leaving every half hour and lasting about an hour. The tour was okay although not greatly informative and was also spoiled a little by various idiot tourists who; didn’t understand which tour they were booked on, didn’t understand food couldn’t be brought in, didn’t understand no mobile phones and who worst of all continued to take pictures of the place even though they’d been asked not to for security reasons. Bah humbug!

After the tour we headed off to explore the relatively non-existent Chinatown and so passed through to Darling Harbour where we saw a Nepalese festival, a pretty amazing streetdancing act, a beautiful fountain and a big ass submarine. Darling Harbour really does seem like the place to be. Sadly though we couldn’t be there for long as we had to head off to catch our train. It was a sad moment saying goodbye to our lovely host, the amazing apartment and the stunning city. Au revoir my love!

Rex’s Rules of the Road

• If you’re going surfing at Bondi be prepared for the exorbitant deposit fees or take your own board.

• Check out Government House in the Royal Botanic Gardens for a nice free tour. It is an exception to the rule though, only being open Friday to Sunday.

• Watch out for other tourists – they may be stupid. And obviously in ways that we would never be! (That last bit was sarcasm just in case you didn’t catch that).

• Of course Rach has done some more reviews of Bondi Beach, the Justice and Police Museum, Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens, Government House and Darling Harbour.