The wall. Everyone hits it eventually. Paul hit it on Friday night when we were having dinner at my gorgeous friend, Angela’s house. For me it was last night when we were at the beautiful home of Paul’s stage daughter, Olivia Beardsley, parents. It’s the point that you can no longer battle against the jet lag and your body just begins to shut down as you fall asleep in mid sentence.

For me it came as no surprise, I had been sleeping terribly. Yesterday I was awake at 4.30am. I did put the time to good use, though, as I embarked on 5k run through the Botanic Gardens, round the Opera House and down to Circular Quay. The downside to this was that at 7.30am I was quite a long way from the apartment with no money and no appetite to do the walk (let alone run) back. Thankfully with an iPhone these days you are never truly lost. A look at Apple Maps directed me to the nearest train station to get me back to Kings Cross (the station in Potts Point where we are staying - before you come up with a smart arse riposte), a tap of Apple Pay on my phone sorted my fare and also did the same at the vending machine when I needed a bottle of water. It is amazing how technology has so quickly become indispensable and remarkable to think that when I was last in this city - I didn’t even own an iPhone.

That run, on top of the days adventures , as outlined by Paul in the previous chapter, took my step count up to 23,000 yesterday, added to the previous days travels -it’s no wonder that at 9.30pm last night my body said - “right I’m going to sleep now”.

It’s often the nature of the a city based holiday that you do lots of walking, today has been no different and my total walking (and running) mileage for the past three days now tops 28.

Whilst the previous days mileage had been incremental today’s was intentional. Although I have been to the iconic Bondi Beach a couple of times previously, I had never done the famous Bronte to Bondi walk before, but it came highly recommended Having had a solid 7 hours sleep last night, we decided to give it a go. After a brief breakfast in one of the local pavement cafes around the corner from us we caught the train down to Bondi Junction and then popped on a bus to Bronte. Arriving there we were beginning to regret only wearing T-shirts and shorts, because after the heat of yesterday, today was decidedly chilly with cloudy skies and a strong wind.

Bronte beach is a beautiful compact beach on the south east side of Sydney - ie directly onto the ocean rather than the natural harbour and marks the start of the 3k coastal path round to Bondi. The next bay you come across as you make your way round is Tamarama Beach. This was the place where, back in 2007 I watched the sun rise over the ocean at the end of a memorable (and long night/ early morning) after the opening of Billy Elliot. It was as stunning as I remembered it. Moving further round you reach Mackenzies Point and from that headland you get your first glimpse of, probably, the most famous beach in the world - Bondi. In all honesty, I probably prefer Sydney’s other famous beach that we visited yesterday, Manly - but you still can’t fail to be impressed by the beautiful natural cove and perfect sandy beach of Bondi.

Working our way down the cliffs, past the Iceberg restaurant and its famous outdoor pool which sits atop of the cliffs with ocean waves crashing into it, we moved down to the beach. Where it was distinctly windy and still not very warm, so a stop off at the Bondi Pavillion saw Paul and I buy some souvenir clothing, which we immediately put on. Rather than sit on the beach in the cold we decided to head over to the Bondi market.

Bondi itself really does have the feel of an English seaside town (and certainly the weather today contributed to that feeling), but without the bucket and spade shops and the tacky arcades and there was plenty to occupy us instead of planned day on the beach.

After a mooch round the market and shops and a spot of brunch we headed back home, where we took the opportunity to have an explore of the neighbourhood where we are staying. Whilst the immediate area around Kings Cross station and Darlinghurst Road is a little sleazy, moving around the corner onto Macleavey Street and into Potts Point it is like stepping into one of the mid west side districts of Manhattan. Stunning 1930’s town houses, artisan shops and cute independent restaurants which spill out onto the pavements. Across the road from us is Fitzroy Gardens, which contains the beautiful El Alamein memorial fountain, which until the mid 70’s when it moved to the harbour, used to be the focal point of Sydney’s New Year celebrations.

Having been lucky enough to to have been dinner guests for our first two nights in the city, tonight we are fending for ourselves and so will head out locally to one of the aforementioned restaurants ahead of tomorrow’s adventures which sees us changing cities...... RH