It's winter and horrible here!

Allen, Joe, Jennifer and I went out to the Orbit bar on Saturday night. It's a slowly revolving restaurant and bar just next door to where I live. I didn't even know that it existed till Allen mentioned it. It was very trendy and quite smart too, and anyone who visits me now will almost certainly be taken up there.

The bar is on the top floor, the 47th and has some fantastic views of the city. Unfortunately I only had my camera phone for pictures and as it was dark the photos come out very poorly. Well you can just about make out the harbour bridge in the middle of the photo. It really was a spectacular view of Sydney's landmarks. I guess if it wasn't for the two buildings blocking my view of the harbour bridge I would have this view from my apartment as well.

As its winter here the weather isn't so pleasant. It's only been clear skies and sunny all weekend with temperatures around 20 degrees. It's so horrible with clear blue blissful skies and very pleasant temperatures. Well very pleasant for someone from the UK anyhow.

I went cycling out to Bondi beach today and met up with Allen for a swim there. Like my cycling a month ago, I hadn't been swimming since I was a teenager. I forgot to bring my main camera again so you're stuck with poor quality mobile phone pictures, at least there was plenty of light.

The water was quite cold initially but after swimming in it, it felt quite warm. Well relatively warm anyhow. This is a view looking north up the beach. As you can see it wasn't very busy, well it is mid winter here. :-)

This picture shows some surfers in the sea. They're the black dots all in their wet suits, after only being in the sea for about half and hour or so I can well understand why they wear wet suits. It was quite refreshing to go for a swim, but I could have chosen a better beach to start out on instead of Bondi.

Bondi is known for its great breaks and hence great surfing, and even though today was a calm day it still felt more than a little rough in the sea. I swallowed more than my fair share of seawater at times when I was submerged by the breaking waves.

The final picture is of the south side of the beach. It really is a very beautiful beach but I suspect coming here later on in the year will mean that it will be much busier.

My cycle back was quite tiring at times, especially after a short swim too. I didn't think I was going to make it up the steep hill from the beach but I did make it in the end, and without stopping too which put a big smile on my face. Well something had to counteract my aching legs! Allen took the bus back home and I even managed to beat him home. Mind you he did say that the bus stopped at every stop that it could.

Now to figure out how to get sand out of every item of clothing and orifice on my person! Lucky I didn't bring any cucumber sandwiches.