A Bridge and an Opera House

I have travelled to many places in the world since I was twenty one and not too many rival the picturesque beauty of coming home to Sydney Harbour. I'm blessed that I have this view outside one of the rooms in my apartment. When I sit down at my computer and look to my right this beautiful view never fails to take my breath away.

First thing in the morning when I wake up, is I get up out of bed and walk to my sun room at the front of my apartment and turn on my computer. That way I catch the first light of the city I love. The first rays of sunlight as they shimmer and gleam, reflecting off Sydney's central business district skyscrapers behind the Sydney Opera House.

It's like a kiss or warm hug first thing in the morning watching the city wake up as the dawn breaks.

Unfortunately late last year because of unprecedented bush fires, my beautiful city was covered in smoke and smog. Many mornings I could'n't even see the Opera House. I'm used to waking up and not seeing it some mornings when it's shrouded in fog but the smoke blanketing my beautiful harbour was heartbreaking.

Outside of Covid 19 Australians struggled at the end of 2019 and the start of 2020 with the relentless bush fires. We have bush fires every year but nothing like the fires we saw from August 2019 to February 2020. We didn't have time to get past the bush fires when we experienced floods which in a good way ended the bush fires but caused other forms of devastation. From cataclysmic weather we then we jumped straight into the Corona Virus Pandemic. We have not had time to catch our breath, or mourn the losses caused by the devastating bush fires.

I raise the issue of the bush fires because I have never seen Sydney like it. It's usually a city of high clear blue skies, even in winter and warm sunshine and from late 2019 to early 2020 the city was choked with billowing black and white smoke. While the fires were not in the city itself, they were not far away and this Summer we were not able to escape the deluge of smoke that was everywhere.

People started wearing masks late last year so as not to inhale the smoke and then we went to Covid 19 where wearing masks for some continued. You could not walk outside without inhaling a blanket of smoke. I would wake up to the smell of smoke and go to bed with the smell of smoke. It was truly awful.

The evening sunset which is usually so spectacularly beautiful became an apocalyptic sky. The sky was filled with a Sun so bright red it too looked as though it was on fire. For months it seemed this way and it felt like it would never end.

I went on holiday to the US at the end of January to mid February and it was all anyone would talk about when they found out I was Australian while overseas. Everyone showed concern on how bad it was in Australia, especially Sydney and New south Wales where I live and now because of Covid 19 no one even talks about the bush fires or what happened to all those that lost their homes and the loss of a billion animals.

The devastation is all but forgotten as the Pandemic has swept the world putting everyone into isolation or lock down across the globe. So the end of 2019 and the start of 2020 has been a time of contrasts in Sydney, Australia and masks have become the new normal for many.

I can't bring myself to wear one and here in Australia we have done pretty well through this Pandemic with low infection numbers and a low death rate.

It makes you stop and think and this Pandemic has made me learn to take nothing for granted and to appreciate the small things I have and what truly matters when the entire world is forced to shut down. You learn how quickly life can change in a city you live in and love and the world as a whole. The end of 2019 and mid way into 2020 has brought it all home.

So the last ten months has been a time of contrasts. While I live in a city that is usually filled with such beauty, it became a city filled with smoke and fear as bush fires near by burned uncontained and choked our city with smoke.

So as Covid 19 is being contained here and restrictions are being lifted what is there to look forward to in Sydney in the coming months?

German tourists wear face masks because of heavy smoke in Sydney © Jenny Evans/Getty

Winter

It's kinda cold in Sydney right now and we are only a few days off the start of what is officially winter. So waking up to do an early Zoom client session and the apartment is freezing cold and the city is dark and the buildings twinkle with lights and there is still a magnificence to the city even in the dark. Sydney Harbour never loses its magnitude, no matter what the weather.

I'm not a big fan of Winter and luckily Sydney's winter doesn't last all that long and we usually have plenty of sunshine and blue skies but it does get cold. In Sydney we are not really equipped for the cold with limited heating in our houses. Everyone tends to equip their homes with air conditioning instead as Summer is long and hot.

One thing that gets us through the Winter is Vivid Sydney where although it's cold the city comes alive in part of the winter months. Last year was Vivid's eleventh year.

Vivid is a collaboration of light installations across many areas of the city. The sails of the Sydney Opera House become a theatre to various light configurations and displays as does Customs House, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Royal Botanical Gardens, Darling Harbour and on the other side of the city, Taronga Zoo.

These buildings or tourist attractions all become a kaleidoscope of colour and fill Sydney with so much warmth even though it's cold. Vivid is a festival of creative arts, music, talks, entertainment that runs for a few weeks from the end of May until mid June.

There are performances on at the Opera House and last year the legendary Spike Lee spoke about his passion for film and shared his political views at the Sydney Town Hall. There were seminars on the Future of Sex, raising the question will we be having sex with Robot's in the years to come? Music and Art performances by both local and overseas artists make Vivid the largest festival of light, music and ideas in the Southern Hemisphere and it's awesome and gets better each year.

Unless you want to be crushed by a herd of excited and boisterous Vivid party goers, you don't go to Vivid on a weekend. It starts at 6pm when the city gets fully dark and the crowds collide on the weekend. I always go on a weeknight when it is a bit quieter and you can stroll through the city, rugged up with coat, scarf and on a really chilly night maybe a hat to keep my head warm. Vivid is so magical and it's easy to get lost in the reverie of it all while you meander through the streets of the city just taking it all in.

Sadly, there is no Vivid this year because of Covid 19 so it's really good to reminisce on what it's like and live in hope that it will be back in 2021. Fingers crossed!

So while Winter is not my favourite time of the year in Sydney, I do have a beautiful gas fire place that my Shihtzu dog Macy loves to lie beside and curl up in the warm glow of the flames. It looks like the real thing without the pollution.

Sometimes on a cold, windy day when the rain is bucketing down (when it rains in Sydney it can be torrential) and it rains all day, I love to sit in my sun room dressed in my trackie pants (Aussie for sweat pants) wrapped in a really warm blanket, sipping hot, sugary tea, just watching the rain snaking it's way across the harbour.

I don't need Television as I can just sit in my sun room in any weather and take in all the harbour and city lights, watch the ferries go back and forth from Circular Quay to Manly or other parts of the harbour. Watch the trains as commuters cross the Harbour Bridge and the myriad of lights not only from the city but from North Sydney as well.

During Vivid some of the harbour cruise boats that do dinner cruises have the word Vivid brightly coloured and plastered all over them and I can see them from my window. The Harbour Bridge is lit up every night as well and illuminates my apartment with it's warm, iridescent glow. The harbour is just a picture of light and I don't have to move very far to catch the show each evening during Vivid. While I don't see all of it, I see a lot of it from the comfort of my home so how lucky am I?

Summer

My Local swimming hole is called MacCallum Pool. I'm blessed to have a harbour pool less than five minutes walk from my home. It's hidden, nestled among beautiful trees including a large Moreton Bay Fig, which keeps it secluded. It’s a lush and green part of my neighbourhood.

Only the locals know about this rock pool built into the side of Sydney Harbour in the 1920s by a local lad named Fred Lane, who competed in the 1900 Paris Olympics. It was made into the pool it is today by local resident Hugh MacCallum, after whom the pool was renamed in 1933.

It can get really hot and humid in Sydney in summer and nothing beats a dip in this beautiful pool that sits on the edge of the harbour and has stunning views across the water to the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge to its right.

You can sunbathe on the boardwalk or just float in the shallows. I love to look through the slats in the wooden boards and gaze out to the Opera House feeling the cool (sometimes) cold water on my hot, brown skin, just relishing Friday, my day off during the week. It's bliss having the pool often to myself or not having many people around.

On the weekend or school holidays the pool is packed with people, families and children running around and dive bombing into the deep end of the water. It's filled with life and laughter and summer craziness that is indicative of Sydney and Aussies and a recreational lifestyle when they are not stressed out and working. Aussies are serious about their leisure time.

Some people swimming in the pool do rigorous laps, getting their daily exercise and they are earnest about swimming but most people are there to just chill and relax and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. There are not too many places in the world with a view like this one. I'm lucky to live where I do and to enjoy all MacCallum Pool has to offer and it being so close to home.

MacCallum Pool is a little slice of heaven on Sydney's foreshores and before Covid 19 I spent a lot of my Summer here or at Manly Beach which is about twenty minutes drive.

I love the Ocean and there is amazing snorkelling at Shelley Beach (just off Manly Beach). When you put your head under the water it's like an Aquarium with all kinds of coloured fish and Eastern Fiddler Sting Rays, Squid and on a really lucky day you may even see a Seahorse.

Summer in Sydney is so fabulous because we are in the city but surrounded by water and we have such great beaches from gentle harbour beaches like Balmoral to surf beaches like Manly or Bondi or Palm Beach further up the coast.

The pool has been closed during Covid 19 so I didn't get to use it much this Summer but the local council are renovating and upgrading it while it's been closed. It will be brand spanking new in time for this Summer at the end of this unusual year that has been 2020 so far. They have taken away the boardwalk so can't wait to to see what the council replaces it with.

So after a day in the sun and swimming in the pool or the ocean, showering off hot, salty skin and tangled hair and having a quiet night to watch the sun set over the harbour. Before Covid 19 the Cruise Ships from all around the world would enter and leave the harbour in the evenings.

No matter how many times I see them I still get excited when they are around because it always instils the feeling of a holiday.

The cruise ships fit the landscape of the harbour, like a welcomed beacon that is part of Sydney's touristy charm. What's Sydney Harbour without the cruise ships that give it unmitigated life? (I hope they will return when Covid 19 is fully over).

Like the lightening and the thunder in a regular Summer storm, and the city lights, the cruise ships light up the harbour as they slink in and out each night. The harbour is kind of quiet now without them.

Sydney has amazing storms especially electrical storms in Summer that light up the sky like fireworks. After a long, hot humid day or a number of consecutive days of hot weather, we need a break from the continuous heat and humidity. For some reason Sydney always seems to deliver a much needed southerly wind that cools things down and often brings with it the infamous Sydney storm.

I love sitting at my desk or on one of my arm chairs in my sun room and watching a storm roll across the harbour. There is nothing like it. Thunder cracks and beats across the water loudly like some deep, bass drum. The sky darkens and goes black and the lightening strikes, sometimes thousands of strikes over and over again. Breaking the blackness with electrical ferocity, like some wonderful light show across the city. I can't wait to get my phone and record it. Like huge waves, I love storms and Sydney has the best storms.

I get to see fireworks at least once a week and sometimes there are fireworks and a storm combined like in the video below.

Everything is quiet right now but life is slowly returning in Sydney as we go back to normal. Restrictions are being lifted and we are slowly being allowed to see friends again. I'm having lunch with friend's tomorrow for the first time in over tow months.

What is normal and should we go back to the way we were? I don't think so. There are so many things I love about my beautiful Sydney. It is a landscape like no other but much as I miss the cruise ships and the pool being open and Vivid not being on this year, I don't think we should go back to normal as it was.

I love this planet and I love my city and we need to look after them and each other- our cities and our planet and our people. It's our landscape and we are responsible for its evolution. Our cities, our planet, the world is in our hands and it's time we took that responsibility seriously. Something needs to give and change so we can move forward in a new normal.

I want my city, my landscape that is Sydney to go on and on and on. In the words of Julia Roberts narrating a nature video - Nature will always evolve - will we? I hope so in order that this beautiful landscape I call home will be here for a long time to come.