I'm really not sure what the couple from yesterday were pointing at, but it may have been this fisherman, who stayed poised on this narrow concrete groyne for the hour or so I was there, or even the 16 foot skiffs out on the water from the nearby sailing club.

Look! Over there!

What had they spotted? You'll have to wait for tomorrow for a possible answer.

Looking from Monterey to the city

Once the beachfront along the Grand Parade through Brighton-le-Sands, Monterey and Ramsgate was high sand dunes, which regularly drifted across the road. Nowadays they are lower, and stabilised with plantings of native vegetation.

Photo from Rockdale its beginning and development by Philip Geeves and James Jervis, rev 1986, published by Rockdale Municipal Council.

Ramsgate Baths

At Ramsgate Baths, a remnant of the last surviving timber pool enclosure within the Botany Bay/Georges River area. Its construction technique and use of materials is unique within the Sydney region. Such enclosures are built along the bay to provide safe swimming free of the threat of shark attack. Sharks are numerous within the bay.

Bin unwanted fishing line

This is the first time I have noticed these receptacles along the beaches of Botany Bay. Great idea. Discarded fishing line has a nasty habit of endangering sea life. Read more about the TAngler Bins here. Hope the guys below do the right thing!

Beach games

There's a Barbie girl who's lost her thongs, Sandringham

Yuck factor 100%

She spent the afternoon squeezing his pimples!

Platform diver?

Sunday afternoon my husband (this is not him!) and I took a walk along Botany Bay. Looks like the council has been busy replacing railings - last time I was along here they were very rusty. And building platforms! Our guess is they are going to be a new set of steps down to the beach. I wonder if this fellow reached the same conclusion?

Stay tuned for some more of what we saw on our walk in the coming week.

Bumborah Point, Phillip Bay

Congwong Bay Beach, La Perouse

Statue of Spyros Louis, Brighton-le-Sands

Greek Gold Medallist in Marathon
Athens 1896
Sculptor: Pavlos Kougioumtzis

Brighton-le-Sands is the centre of Greek community in Sydney, with lots of restaurants and cafes, and this sculpture.

Sister City Marker: Molineaux Point, Port Botany

Commemorating the sister ports relationship between Sydney Ports Corporation and Yokkaichi Port Authority, Japan.

Sister City relationships are fairly popular around the world. Apparently they were begun by the Eisenhower administration in the US in 1952.

Sydney City Council has sister city relationships with San Francisco (1968); Nagoya, Japan (1982); Welllington, New Zealand (1982); Portsmouth, UK (1984); Guangzhou, China (1985) and Florence, Italy (1986).

Local government areas also have sister cities. Where I live, we are sisters with Takeo, Cambodia; Tanggu, China; Bitola, Macedonia; Glyfada, Greece; Rockdale, Texas, USA; Bint Jbail, Lebanon; Yamatsuri, Japan and Gilgandra, a country town in NSW. I don't know that these relationships confer any special benefits other than a warm inner glow and trips for local dignitaries!

Do you know of any Sister City relationships your city has?

Foreshore Road, Port Botany

Old truck and boat, with some of the cranes of modern Port Botany, which accounts for 70% of Sydney's total trade throughput. Port Botany is being expanded.

Another day, another picnic, La Perouse

A family picnic beside the Barrack Tower, La Perouse. It has been there since the early 1820s to prevent smugglers entering Botany Bay unseen. It is the oldest building still in existence on the shores of the bay. From the 1830s it was a Customs House, and in 1868 it was used as a local school. Restored by the La Perouse Monuments Trust, 1961.

I think they just look cold!

At least it's not as cold as this morning, which is apparently the coldest Sydney morning for 21 years (4 degrees at 7 am in the east, -1 in the western suburbs - oh how we Sydney-siders suffer ;-)

Bare Island

Still at La Perouse. This is Bare Island, joined to the mainland by a ricketty wooden bridge. This fort was built in 1885, when the Crimean War made Sydney feel vulnerable to possible Russian invasion. (Nothing happened, of course). It was named Bare Is after a journal entry by Captain Cook, who referred to it as "...a small, bare island..."

If it appears a little familiar, that may be because you saw Tom Cruise fighting baddies there in Mission Impossible 2. Apparently there is great diving off it too.

More about Bare Island: Here and underwater dive pictures here.

le quatorze juillet

"How to mark Bastille Day on Sydney Daily Photo, with an Aussie flavour? " I wondered.

Well, I think there's only one place in the world* you might come across these three flags flying together: La Perouse, on the northern shore of Botany Bay. The Australian flag, the French flag, and the Aboriginal flag (La Perouse is home to a large Aboriginal community)

French Captain Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de Laperouse, arrived here just six days after the British First Fleet in 1788. Laperouse stayed in Botany Bay for six weeks, building an observatory, stockade and garden. This monument marks the site of his camp.

Today when I arrived there was a group of French speaking young people just packing up musical instruments; I had missed celebrations featuring the Orchestre Polyphonique from Île de la Réunion. Which just proves how even-handed I am, because I also missed the 29 April celebrations on the opposite side of Botany Bay, commemorating the arrival of Captain Cook! (see this blog)


* Hmmmm- perhaps at the Musée Branly in Paris, which has a modern Aboriginal art collection?