The train to Sydney is very busy. It races through fields, past billabongs, is overflown by flocks of parrots, trundles past workshops, yards full of vehicles in various stages of repair, houses, gardens, flats and at last into a station, to transfer us to a double-decker train crammed with commuters, most clad in shorts, T-shirts and sandals. This train deposits us on a platform directly overlooking Sydney Harbour. I lean on the wall, immersed in a bath of humid air. A white cruise ship the size of a substantial block of flats, is resting peacefully, surrounded by a host of little ferry boats - a bit like an Old English Sheepdog surrounded by a pack of little Scotty dogs, all snapping and jostling each other around her feet. Curving near this is Sydney Harbour Bridge, its network of metal rearing up between two cream sandstone columns.
We get on one of the ferries, again surrounded by commuters, and set off to sail for half an hour to reach Manly. At once, we are in the shadow of the iconic Sydney Opera House, like a group of immense butterflies resting at the edge of the ruffled water. Or like curved fans, or - as is intended - like sails. Initially it looked smaller than I had imagined, but as we sailed closer to it, and as we saw later as we walked in and around it, it is actually huge. It’s covered in cream tiles, in patterns that evoke feathers to me, which make it glow bright in the sunshine.
Manly is a busy town, through which runs a wide road, palm trees marching down the middle, shops on either side, many selling swirled mounds of ice cream in every brilliant colour imaginable. It leads across the isthmus on which Manly is built, towards a long golden beach, dotted with swimmers, sunbathers, surfers, these last somewhat frustrated by an only gently rolling Pacific. We lunch of fish (of unfamiliar species) and chips and milk shakes.
We wander along the prom, wade in a warm sea on a beach of crushed shells, where I meet and chat to a Greek lady now operating a tourist business in Australia. She wants to know what would commend Scotland as a destination, and I find myself describing the beautiful, ice kissed trees I saw in December, and confirming that, yes, you can in fact swim in the sea – if clad in wetsuits.
That evening, I sat in the garden watching the sunset smear a sky of duck egg blue with peach coloured clouds, which rapidly changed through orange to a deep rose pink. A backdrop of flame coloured sky picked out the leaves and twigs of a copse of tall gum trees. And then I heard loud and raucous laughter coming from this copse. A kookaburra, and it really does sound as if it’s laughing uproariously. Since we arrived, we’ve seen Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, white as snow, nibbling the lawn (and also a lot of other things you’d rather they didn’t). A small flock of Galas, grey chested, pink winged, flying overhead. Crows, smaller than ours, Mudlarks, in sharp black and white suits, Magpies. We’ve listened to the chiming of the Bell Birds, and the beeping of Whip Birds, that sounds exactly like the sound effects in a space invader game. Dragonflys skip and hover over the tiny hedge, in and out of which a little green and grey lizard flickers daintily. So far, no wombats, kangaroos or wallabys, although Moira tells me that they are often to me seen in the woodland behind the house, and at times large footprints reveal the chaos that they can wreak on the garden.
What's a billabong?
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