Morning Constitutional

Saturday 3rd March

Today we headed off to Centennial Park for a morning walk. Centennial is Sydney’s largest park, and it’s right on our doorstep. It’s also completely free (and easy) to park. This did lead me to ponder the arrangements back home, where you pay £2.70 into a machine that refuses to give change, in exchange for a dreary walk in a municipal garden with a derelict greenhouse and a few peacocks. The UK looks pretty miserable in the rear-view mirror.

It was a glorious morning, if a bit humid. The park was awash with Aussies playing cricket, families setting up gazebos and girls riding their ponies along the bridle path. There were black swans on the lake and sulphur-crested cockatoos feasting on berries in the trees. We managed to stay in the shade of the gum trees most of the way around until we stopped off at the cafe for a coffee.
The café turned out to be a real battle of willpower, as usual, though I’m pleased to report that we won as we managed to resist the usual Aussie array of raisin breads, banana bread and pear and raspberry bread (the latter being especially delicious). There were also muffins, cookies, ice-creams and dreamy-looking sandwiches. As we are on a health drive, we sipped on coffee and diet coke with pinched expressions on our faces as Sydney’s beautiful people stopped by for that pear and raspberry bread. There’s no justice.

The café at Centennial park is fabulous, not just because of the potential to eat yourself into a carbohydrate-fuelled stupor, but because there’s a kids’ fountain outside, so you can order your drinks and sit back under a parasol while the little ones splash around (and in Ella’s case, stick their mouths directly under the waterfall and drink the chlorinated water as though it’s lemonade). I kicked off my shoes and looked around at the abundance of tropical trees and flowers, Qantas red-tailed planes flying low through the perfectly blue sky every now and then, Ella squealing with delight at the water, soaked through to her skin. “Have we actually died and gone to heaven?” I said to Darren. “Because it can’t be too much different to this”.