allrite

It’s been a very pleasant long weekend. Saturday saw us shopping in Miranda, then spending the late afternoon and evening at Dolls Point and Brighton le Sands. We sat by the beach watching the kitesurfers glide atop the waves, then took a leisurely stroll along the sand. Dinner was a seafood basket a Brighton, watching the planes take-off from the Kingsford-Smith Airport, followed by a pear and pistachio gelato as good as any we tasted in Italy.

Walking into the Novotel and watching the planes fly past naturally recalled our wedding. I was in that kind of mood anyway. So on Sunday, the excuse of travelling in to the city to see the world’s largest flower, the Titan Arum, at the Botanic Gardens was reason enough to also travel down memory lane in the Rocks.

The Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum – huge deformed penis, or bunga bangkai – corpse flower in Malay) was quite amazing, although it hadn’t reached full flower. It uses up energy stored for years to heat up it’s flower stem until it starts steaming off a rotten-fish stench. We had arrived too early for that, unfortunately. See the Royal Botanic Gardens website for more information.

We walked though the gardens to the Opera House exit, had some apple pie (it’s the best flavour) gelato at Circular Quay, then wandered up into The Rocks. Wedding parties were everywhere, along with their attendant photographers. We counted three at Observatory Hill, which was as beautiful as ever. B and I just sat down on a bench and drank it all in, eyes seeing the present and times past.

I’ll ponder these memories further in the next entry.