Andrew and Kathleen

Day 1 (Jan 23)

Our friends Eva and Stef organised a fishing weekend up at The Entrance, about an hour north of Sydney on the coast, and were gracious enough to allow us to gatecrash.

We wanted to make the most of our weekend, so Kathleen, Stef, Eva and I drove up to The Entrance after work on Friday night (Note to self - never drive through the CBD to the Sydney Harbour Bridge at 6pm on a weekday). Plans were not assisted by the North Shore line deciding to halt train services for an hour as Kathleen attempted to get from Crows Nest to Central!

Driving up through the Ku-ring-gai area, the forecast storms came in, with an amazing lightning show that lit up the sky. The rain came not long after, pelting down fiercely. Luckily, we made it up in one piece, a little behind schedule, much to the annoyance of the hotel manager. We made him miss a bit of the movie he was watching on tv, you see.

Day 2 (Jan 24)

Saturday morning, Kathleen and I were up early for a walk down to the beach, along the foreshare and back. Initially, I had thought that The Entrance was a small, holiday beach town. It's not. It's booming, with apartment blocks going up left, right and centre.

With Eva and Stef now up and about as well, we headed to the town centre, buying some fishing rods. We found a promising spot about five minutes drive over the other side of the bridge, near a small river. Unfortunately, we didn't catch anything. Except a bit of sunburn.

Giving up the rods, we headed to the beach - clear blue skies, hot sun, warm water. I'm not much of a beach person, but conditions like that are enough to turn anyone. Eva and Kathleen headed to the rock pool, while Stef and I rode the waves (and dodged the rocks in the shallows. The girls were able to see us the entire time. "It's hard to miss the two whitest guys on the beach," as Eva put it.

Day 3 (Jan 25)

Poor Eva and Stef, in the front bedroom, had to deal with the revheads staying in the apartments opposite revving their cars - "It's just like bloody Burwood."

A little less sunny than the previous day, we were keen to get out on the water like everybody else, rather than continue catching nothing from the shore. We hired a boat with a small outboard motor from one of the bait shops. We'd barely left the jetty and dropped anchor when, with a fanfare of thunder, the rain came. It rained virtually the two hours we were out on the water, with thunder rolling around the hills*. Truly eerie.

Luckily, our luck had changed, and we couldn't keep the fish off the lines! Unluckily, every single one was undersize, with the bream being particularly persistent on getting hooked. Kathleen was happy to reel them in, but guess who had to take them off, give them the kiss of life, and drop them back in the drink?

Dripping wet, with saturated clothes, we hung around in the humid heat for the daily pelican feeding. Along with half the population of NSW, as it turned out - you've never seen so many people turn out to see same pelicans scarf down some fish! It's the town's big tourist drawcard, apparently.

Back at the apartment, with the girls having crashed in an afternoon nap, Stef and I took the opportunity to head down to the beach, where, believe it or not, our luck changed - we reeled in two mid-size flatties. Any allegation that we went to Coles to purchase flathead fillets, rather than gutting and filleting them ourselves, is absolutely and completely baseless!

After dinner we took in a little night-fishing, near where we were the previous day. Again, only baby fish were hungry, and we went home, once again, fishless.

* Sitting at work reading the paper (hey, it was lunchtime!) on Tuesday, the Daily Telegraph had a graphic of satellite tracking all the lightning strikes over the weekend - more than 15,000. Believe it or not, The Entrance had hardly any!

Day 4 (Jan 26)

Returning back to Sydney, we made a stop at Australian Reptile Park, which surprisingly was not as cheesy as it appeared from the highway. They've got cute koalas, some pretty good exhibits on snakes and spiders, a few presentations (the Crazy Critters was hilarious, due to the presence of some psycho cassowaries who were determined to upstage the presentation), and it's pretty good value for something that's pretty much out in the middle of nowhere.

Unfortunately, Old Sydney Town had closed down one year earlier. Could there have been a more Strayan way to spend Straya Day?

Coming back into Sydney, driving back over the Harbour Bridge, thousands of people down in Circular Quay, or out on the water, was an amazing sight. It's always good to come home, no matter how good the trip.

Photos