By mid-week, we had grown tired of the cereal, milk, bread, and jam morning routine, so I bought a few veggies and eggs to make ourselves an omelette. I don’t know if it was the pan or the holiday mood, but the omelette turned out so pretty I wanted to share the picture with everyone.
I also did a quintessentially Indian thing: I bought a packet of tea powder to make tea at the Air BnB. I dislike tea bags, and the cold weather begged for a morning cup of chai. Of course, I did not carry the strainer with me from Singapore, but I used the school science of sedimentation and decantation.
Armed with the eggs, veggies, and morning tea in our stomachs, we set out to visit the University of Sydney. Google told us we had to reach Redfern by train, not the tram system. As soon as I saw the Central railway station, I couldn’t help comparing it with the stations of my childhood. The overbridge reminded me of Dadar but without the crowd. Can anyone familiar with Dadar imagine that?
Someday, I hope to see a Mumbai local train like this: not empty but clean, suave, sufficiently occupied, and perhaps a double-decker. Will it happen during my lifetime?
Redfern blew us away with its unique university-town look. There were rows and rows of houses with tiny gardens but big enough to park a bicycle. Groups of students converged onto the main thoroughfare, emerging from different streets and alleys. We walked and walked that day, comprehending a different meaning of a liberal university. We could enter any building, ask for directions, get vague responses, and still feel completely at home on campus. It is so huge that there are main roads crisscrossing right through and city traffic driving past university dwellers.
University of Sydney’s Quadrangle is famous as the Hogwarts doppelganger. Apparently, a few years ago, Chinese tourists convinced fellow travellers that this was indeed the location where the Harry Potter movie was shot, but it is not.
When you see the architecture, it is easy to understand why a Harry Potter fan would imagine the film being shot here. We saw several tourist groups hanging around for pictures.
A funny incident was when we entered the Geoscience faculty building without knowing what it was. We thought that this was the main building and sauntered in as if entering a museum. There were some artifacts and framed photographs in glass cases. Suddenly, I heard several voices, a calm, authoritative one rising above the din. Curious to know, I walked towards the voices and came to a door that modestly proclaimed it to be the meeting room for the Geoscience faculty. The voices inside were leading a serious academic discussion. We hurried out of the building, mortified, but no one had stopped us when we entered.
Hungry after a walk around the campus, we wandered into a café and ordered coffee and sandwiches. Another discussion took place at the table behind us. It was interesting to hear three faculty members deliberate on a project they wish to assign to their students. My daughter was impressed by how they set out to veer the students towards the project outcomes and objectives. I wonder if this could be a legitimate way to choose a good university by listening to the faculty discussions at the campus café.
After lunch at the cafe, we set off for something we had been pining for since we landed in Sydney—the ocean. We have lived in coastal towns and cities for most of our lives, but watching the sea can never go out of fashion. Any opportunity to do so will be grabbed with all our senses.
We took a bus towards Bondi (pronounced Bon-dye) beach, and what a sight it was as the bus neared the stop. I nudged my daughter as a blue carpet shimmered in the afternoon sun between two villas on the street. She nodded and went back to sleep, only to be fully awake when we stepped out a few seconds later, for down below the bus stop lay the absolutely smashing and famous beach of Bondi. Unlike the photos online, the beach was empty because it was not beach-play weather anyway, but we had our fill of the sea view from atop the cliff.
Our main goal was to follow the coastal walk route from Bondi to Coogee (pronounced could-jee).
The blue waves crashed at the rocky foot of the cliff and turned into white foam. We stood there mesmerised. I turned to my daughter, “You know? The Opera House is amazing. It is one of man’s finest creations. But nature is the best architect.”
“But we just saw the University. Wasn’t that beautiful?”
“It was, but can you compare?”
She did not reply but turned her gaze to the ocean.
My husband stood as if he had unburdened all his worries and anxieties with a light smile.
More than the ocean, my family’s response to it made me happy. The previous day, we had second thoughts about visiting Bondi because the weather forecast was not all that encouraging. But at that moment, when I saw my family looking at the ocean, lost in its vastness, beauty, and sheer exuberance, I knew it would have been a colossal miss.
My initial plan was to complete the 3.2-kilometre-long coastal walk in about two hours, about four times slower than our usual brisk walking pace. But we lingered along the walk, taking in the ocean as much as possible. Closer to us, the weathered rock formations took us to a different place and time. The streams gurgling down the cliff did their best to make themselves heard over the din of the ocean waves.
We looked enviously at the houses above lining the cliff. Imagine waking up to that view every day. Does anyone ever get bored with an ocean view? But I also wondered about the price to be paid for a view like this, both monetary and environmental.
Many walkers and joggers passed by without even a nod at the ocean. I assumed that they must be daily visitors. Unlike them, we were arrested by the view from every vantage point. We ended our walk after a measly one kilometre, where the father-daughter duo found an ice cream stall. It was getting darker, and we knew that completing the coastal walk would not have been practical at that time. The sunset time was a few minutes before five.
We took the bus back to the city centre and marvelled at the driver’s maneuvers along narrow, climbing roads with just enough space for the bus. It was nothing compared to the hairpin bends on the hills back in India, but it was still impressive.
We returned to the apartment, contented yet yearning for more. Gazing at the vast, open ocean, blue when it’s calm, foaming white at its energetic best, with nothing to break the view, was the perfect getaway we needed. I had hoped to spot some whales off the coast. A sign at one of the viewing points mentioned that this was the best time to watch the whales. We didn’t spot any. However, we still had a chance. The last thing on our plan was whale watching, and we looked forward to going into the ocean to spot them.
Meanwhile, my daughter appeared excited. “Why?” I wondered. She reminded me of the tour we had booked for the next day, and I got my answer.
It will be fitting to write it tomorrow as India plays its final match in the T20 World Cup.
P.S. You can read the previous part of this series here.
And the next post here.
The Plausible Mind 
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