Vehicles & Animals

With Mitzi & Trish leaving the Beach street domicile the following week, the girls had extra motivation to make the most of their last full weekend in Sydney. Mitzi suggested going horse riding and since trying things I’d not ever done before was well at the top my list, I begrudgingly came along. “Begrudgingly” since this particular morning was cold and raining and I have no waterproof clothing. Nevertheless, we (minus Trish but add friends Tom and Rob) got our selves down to Centennial Park and tacked up ready to meet our new best friends.

On meeting Buster; described as a Chestnut with a White face, there was an immediate bond. I knew he was a horse and I was about to pay $60 to have a ride on his back, and he could obviously tell I wasn’t gonna flatten him with my weight – a fair compromise I think. I was informed that Buster “forgets he has 4 feet and occasionally trips over”. I’ve never seen a horse “trip” but I was hoping it wouldn’t look anything like those first few dramatic fallers at the Grand National.

We were led out of the stables and onto the Centennial Park Bridal track; the inner-most lane to the cycle route I took a few weekends back. After a brief induction on how to drive a horse, I was ready to yee-haw my way around on Buster… okay, more like trot through the mud hoping I wasn’t gonna fall off – or come off with my inner thighs in agony. After a few stumbles, I was confident Buster would get me all the way home without me coming off in a muddy puddle – even after he stepped the pace up to a canter a few times; quite possibly threatening the original colour of my under-krackers, I think his accelerator cable must be faulty.

As luck would have it, the rain eased up… 20minutes after we’d finished and got on the bus.

After an afternoon drying off, warming up watching DVDs and munching on oven fries and home made chicken baguettes, we ventured back out in the dark of night to check out the notorious Kings Cross district of Sydney. Kings Cross is home to a wealth of clubs and gerenal seedy nightspots where some of the worlds odd balls go out to play. We checked out a couple of bars, including one that served us Long Island Ice Teas in an actual tea-pot before everyone was ready to move on to some awesomely classy night club. We fell into a place called The Empire, which was suitably trashy playing all the cheesy tunes you could ask for. After fulfilling our fix of the 'notorious' Kings Cross, it was time to do battle with the drunkards challenging for the odd rare cab appearing from around the corner.

After the late night, half of Sunday was already lost when we all started to stir. Trish having not been in the waters off Sydney, decided she’d like to go for a dip. The sun was shining and it was looking like a fine (winters) day to go swimming. And none of us needed any convincing… None.

After a quick dip that saw us get flipped upside down by a monumentally large wave we headed off to Five-O’s; the home of the $5 steak & mash. These cheap meals had become the Sunday tradition and this was to be our sad farewell with all four of us Mosely Place tennants plus Tom munching away at our Medium Rares, (and Calamari in “veggie-Flees” case).