Sculpture by the Sea

Already rather stunning, my morning run has been elevated somewhat this week, firstly by the sighting of wales and also by the installation of Sculpture by the Sea which opens on Thursday. Each day, I've watched the artists and dig little coffin squares of turf, and lovingly begin to place their pieces, either by hand, or by crane as I saw this morning.

There are still many half installed, which I didn't photograph, but it was lovely to meet some of the artists, watching their works come to fruition.

I think the concept is such a good one which could be adapted for many locations, including the not so glamorous.

Royal National Park

Another jolly Sunday out on the motorbike. This time down to the Royal National Park, just south of the city. This park is so big it goes for miles and we barely scratched the surface. We ended up in a little beach town called Bundeena which, as the crow flies, is not that far from the city across the water. We joined an art walk along the coast and stumbled across a herd of deer, which I realise is unusual for Australia. The park was apparently run by a trust who released the captive deet in the late 1800's and they are now running riot, eating their way through fauna and rubbish bins.

The journey back was interesting as torrential rain made us stop many times for cups of tea, but we ended up back, soaked to the skin for the second time in a week.

Wisemans Ferry

No walking this weekend. Instead the perfect weather on Saturday pushed us onto the big white beast and into the hills for a day out. Wisemans Ferry was our destination, which turned out to be a car ferry across the Hawkesbury, about an hour inland.

After a few hours riding through dust tracks and flood plains filled with sunshine and wallabies, we reached St Albans. Just short of the village we found a cemetery filled with the graves of early settlers dated in the mid 1800's, all apparently called Elizabeth or John bizarrely. The fact that most of them reached their '80s, suggested that they might have lived a slightly healthier life up here than in Sydney, or London where most of them started.

St Albans turned out to be a little settlers town with a pub that could easily have been in a country village like Kent. We shared a ploughmans and ended up as fielders for a village cricket match which was fired by more sharp wit than runs and very entertaining.

The drive back through the Forgotten Valley was spectacular and worth the pain of freezing fingers after the sun had set.