Coogee to Bondi

Before I get started let me tell you firstly I don’t swim , secondly I don’t like beaches and thirdly I think they are massive tourist traps but this being all said we it is always nice to take a long hike on a path whether it’s on a beach or a mountain but I much rather prefer it to be an ice path lol 😝 we are comfortably waking up on the regular around 7 am and going to grab our bacon and egg sandwich from InCafe  downstairs and a cappuccino ... ok Kathleen is going while I’m sitting here writing my blog but that’s just the way we roll . After chilling all morning we scooped out the laundry facilities here at the hostel and there are 3 floors with them and it’s roughly $6 to do a load .... I’m not planning to separate my whites from colours or any of that malarchy ! There is a small room to sit in so when I do plan to do my laundry I will probably sit and write my blog early in the morning . The walk we are planning to do is organized by the hostel and it’s free , we just need to get our  Opal Cards to take transit here but we already knew that as we inquired the day before and went out to buy our cards which are free aside from having to load a minimum of $10 on the card which goes towards your travel . Seems quite organized !

Out guides name is Damian and he works for the hostel so this isn’t one of those things where you pay the guide at the end of the tour , he seems a bit overwhelmed when he sees that we have a group of roughly 40 tourists joining him today . It’s not an everyday job for him and more of a part time thing , he’s friendly enough and as the hike went on we found out he was from Frankfurt , Germany 🇩🇪 . We all met in the front lobby of our hostel to depart at 11 am but Damian had to go meet some others and that stalled our departure  by about 15 minutes and when we began to walk towards our bus stop he asked if everyone had their Opal cards and a large number of people didn’t so we had to stop at a shop then for them to purchase their cards ... oh yeah you can buy these cards at any convenience store which makes it easy to find also . We made our way to our stop and got on the M50 bus to Coogee and that driver drove like a maniac lol 😝 it was fun and bumpy sitting in the back of the bus bouncing around and making sure we didn’t fly out of our seats . When we arrived everyone began snapping pics and then we were all brought into a semi circle to introduce ourselves where I noticed a guy wearing an Islanders cap and he was from Sweden ... Sweden got knocked out earlier in the morning by Switzerland at the world juniors so I mentioned to him if he knew about it and he wasn’t too pleased , we chatted about hockey for most of the walk as he is a defence man that plays in Sweden for a lower level club but used to play in the second or third division if I recall correctly . He asked how Canada was doing at the juniors and I checked my phone and they were beating Finland 1-0 but that soon changed and Canada went on to be upset by the Finns 2-1 in OT , honestly I would like to see Canada win but I really couldn’t care less as I haven’t been watching any games this year since I’m travelling and there is no way to watch it here . Life goes on and it’s time to walk along a whole bunch of beaches for the next 2.5 hours .

The weather was 25c but in the sun it felt like 40c and I was wearing a black T-shirt so you can only imagine how I was internally cooking 😓 as we walked along the path some of the group began to disappear and I’m sure by the time we reached the end of our path we were down to half of what started this trek . It was a moderate walk as we had to go up hills and climb stairs and rocks along the path and I was sweating my balls off drinking water that Kathleen brought along with her and kept refilling along the path as there are plenty of water stations to refill at . There were a lot of people doing the walk aside from our group and everyone seemed in good spirits . I would highly suggest if you’re here to do this hike as it’s decent exercise and a really nice view even though as I said earlier I’m not some beach bum 😝 now I haven’t used a smear of sun tan lotion as I’m not that kinda guy and I am blessed with olive skin but by the end of the day I did feel the heat ... and I’m stubborn enough to not use it even to this moment ! Beach after beach we stopped and everyone took pics but to me it was the same old shit and as the clock ticked I grew more of an urge to sit at a bar have some oysters and grab a cold beer 🍺 

I know Kathleen really wanted to jump into this pool and I feel bad that she didn’t get into it because I didn’t bring a towel or a bathing suit so you could say I was unprepared but I was hoping to make up for this later and take her to a gin bar called the Barber Shop . When we saw this pool I was done with the hike as I was hot , sweaty , tired , hungry and thirsty and we were near the end of it at Bondi Beach anyways so I turned to Damian our guide and said bye and we high tailed it to the next place that sold oysters which happened to be called  Vue Bar.  We got to the bar went upstairs and there was a great view and we got nice seats and decided to order a couple over priced IPA’s which were not great and we got some olives and bread with oil to start off then we asked the server to list off what they had on tap and he looked at us like we were wasting his time and I asked do you have any IPA’s on tap and he said yes to which I responded ok what kind and how hoppy .... with his clueless face he said we have an XPA , what the fuck is that ? He went to get a sample and by the time he got back I realized he was talking about an extra pale ale which is nowhere close to an IPA and in that long wait we had decided to try some rose’ wine instead and another server came by and we said to her what’s the difference between the two rose’ wines , she was also clueless and said one is dry and one is sweet ....ok and how about your oysters , are they large or small ? She said you can get the small which is 6 or the large which is 12 .... wow I could hear the air whistling through her ears lol ! Then I said not the size of the plate but the actual oysters are they big , medium , small and she said oh they are ok . I left it at that and ordered 12 oysters and two wines . The wine came out I’m a sipping size serving and only 6 oysters showed up and by this point I wanted to get the bill and leave . The service at this place is non existent and the servers don’t know the word multi tasking , they can’t take an order if it depended on their lives and their knowledge of the menu is like my knowledge of the Chinese language ....FYI I can’t speak Chinese 🤪 the bill cam and I spent $75 on utter shite .... but the view was nice and that is why I said at the beginning of the blog that beaches are always tourist traps !

The oysters we had were crap also ! Probably the worst I’ve ever had . When they brought us the bread and olives earlier they didn’t bring any napkins and when they brought the oysters they didn’t bring any forks or Tabasco or dressing .... I can’t bitch enough about how shit this place is . We went to Ben & Jerry’s down the street to chase the gross taste of those oysters away with some ice cream then grabbed an Uber to go back to our room to wash up and get ready to go to The Barber Shop . Unfortunately the sun had gotten to me and I never showered and didn’t make it to the bar as I passed out around 6 pm .... sorry Kathleen ☹️ drinks are on me when we do go ! We have to wake up early anyway as tomorrow I have to be near the Sydney Opera House to get some iconic picks of myself wearing my goalie gear .... just so you now , we made it to do that this morning 😝 I will write about it tomorrow . Time to go do whatever Kathleen likes now ... cheers 🍻