Sydney is home to some of the best beaches, world class
beaches that are always somewhere on the top 10 list of travel shows or travel
websites. Having been to some of the best beaches New South Wales has to
offer has been a great experience. The great thing is that there is
something for everyone, tourist beaches, beaches accessible by boat only, surf
beaches, and some relaxed and secluded beaches that are a few hours drive from
Sydney’s CBD.
When I arrived in Sydney in 2010 I was told about water
restrictions due to over 10 years of consistent drought style conditions.
Some local dams were at or below 15% capacity and the Australian government has
been pouring billions of dollars into desalinization plants near every major
city center.
Since drought conditions are typically accompanied by hot,
dry weather I was pretty sure I would be able to explore and enjoy all of the
beaches to my heart’s desire.
After landing in Sydney it took a few days to adapt and
adjust to local time and get over my jetlag. The one thing that does
stand out clearly is that every day I looked out the window of my serviced
apartments window was that it was cloudy, dreary, and raining. It seemed
to rain every day for the first 10 days in Sydney. Now lets put this in
perspective, I spent 12 days in Ireland and as it turns out the weather was
their best kept secret, it only rained 1 or 2 days out of the entire
trip! Having spent 16 months in Sydney I have experience more rain then
Seattle and London (combined!).
During the 1st summer I was in Sydney some
co-workers and I were discussing the crazy weather patterns and everyone was in
shock. People in the 25-35 year old age range had never seen anything
like this in all their years. It was only till a director of the
company chimed in and mentioned that this was “The worst summer I have
experienced since the early 1970’s”. Just my luck, first summer is Sydney
is the worst summer in over 35 years. On the run up to the second summer
in Sydney everyone had a really positive outlook, people were talking about the
beach holidays they were planning, all the BBQ’ing that would be going on, and
the tans we were all about to get.
Fast forward to January of 2012, summer was in full swing
and there was flooding across 3 states in Australia! Some friends and
work mates were all at a pub after a long and wet work week when the same
director from before was standing in front of the pub window with the rain
hammering down behind him slowly sipped his beer and proclaimed “This is the
worst summer I have seen since the early 70’s”. I immediately called him
out on the fact he said this last summer and I was beginning to think that
Australia and Australian’s were fraudulent! The only thing that
straightened this issue out was the simplest comment and concept, “Well” he
said “This summer is worse than last summer so I am sticking by my
opinion”. Bottom line, Sydney’s tourism boards got one over on me as well as the
millions of annual visitors per year.
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