About 50kms south of Sydney is a massive park called the Royal National Park.

It was established in 1879 and is the worlds second oldest national park after Yellowstone. The park is 15000 hectares and includes a long ragged coastline, loads of beaches, and rolling hills, gullys and rocky outcrops covered in bush.

It is the furthest we have been from Sydney so far and made me even more keen to see other parts of this huge country.

Flo and I finally had the same day off and a means of transport with 2 seats, so we went for our first ever proper trip out of Sydney, only as far as West Head, but its a start…hopefully many more missions to come!

Flo hasnt been out of Manly in a long while so we went for a sunday drive and I took her to a few of my favourite places around the North Shore…

Aint so bad…

We hiked up to the Lighthouse at Barrenjoey Head above Palm Beach (where Home and Away is filmed)

Circular Quay, Museum of Contemporary Art, some balcony gardening, cocktails in my new favourite bar, the best dinner in a long while, beach wandering, discovered a mysterious tunnel through the cliffs to Freshwater beach and some amazing news from Ma…been a good weekend.

On saturday we went for a walk on North Head which is next to Manly. It’s a massive decommissioned military base next to the ocean that is now mainly parkland. Then we came back to Manly to catch up with an old friend and ended up at a fancy dress volleyball party. The Mario Bros won it. Random.

39 degrees and no wind, refuge in the Customs House, super humid city streets, water, Sydney Museum, Photography Exhibits, breaking a sweat while walking up the most minor incline, Botanical Gardens, hunting for anywhere with Air Con, more water, so hot you are jumping from shaded spot to shaded spot, ice cream, sweating while standing still, sucking up fumes, the smallest walk seeming to take soo long, mid afternoon lethargy, more water please, and a $197 dollar parking fine…doh.

Sweltering city wanderings photo dump:

1st week wanderings photo dump…