Sculpture by the Sea 2006

I've wanted to go to the famous Sculpture by the Sea for years, but every year it's only on for a short period of time and I had always been busy (usually with study or weddings), but I can now report that I finally made it this year. It did take a lot of effort, as Cityrail was not running trains between Hornsby and Strathfield, but they promised a replacement bus was running every 10 minutes. So off we went to North Strathfield station. Sure enough, it took 40 mins before the bus arrived. Well, the bus was filled up already, so the 20 or so people waiting at North Strathfield decided to squeeze on anywhere, who knows when the next bus will come. What's worst, once on the bus, we were stuck in a traffic jam, so that it took 20 minutes to complete a 5 minutes journey. So all together it took us about an hour to get from North Strathfield to Strathfield. What made it worst was that if we had walked from home it would only be 25 minutes, but that's traffic in Sydney for you.

Once we reached Strathfiled though, it only took 15 minutes on the train to reach Town Hall, where we hopped on to a bus, which took 45 minutes to get to Bondi Beach.

So after the long journey, we finally arrived. The sculptures are situated on the walk between Bondi Beach and Taramara Beach. There were over 100 exhibits ranging from "wonderful" to "What the?". The walk was filled with people all out and about, enjoying the excellent weather like us. We even got some of our photos printed out for free.

So where's the food I hear you ask? Well, we were so late they'd already given out all the free samples of Lipton ice-tea. Once we made our way back to the shopping/tourist strip, we went to the wonderful Gelato Bar, recently reviewed in SMH to try their pastries. Their window displayed a whole array of wonderful treat, I picked up the Poppy Seed Strudel ($5.00), glossy with poppy seed, the feeling sweet but aromatic, and the pastry was flaky and wonderful. It was also big enough for 2. Slokky had the Giant Palmier ($4.50), and it was one of the best palmiers I've ever tasted, and I should know, since we've been on the hunt for great palmiers for a looong time. (The other palmier that was great was in New Caledonia, but you can't go there to get one whenever you get the craving). The buttery and flaky pastry was slightly sweet... yum.

Satisfied, we took the 40 mins bus ride back to town, where we tried to book a restaurant to go to. Encasa, Cafe Pacifico and Mezzaluna were all booked out, but we were told by Mezzaluna staff to try their sister restaurant, Beppi's, instead. So we gave them a call, and sure enough they had a table for us. After dining there, I know why they have a table available now, read my review to find out.

Postscript - the bus back home only took 10 minutes, including waiting time!

Info

Gelato Bar
140 Campbell Parade
Bondi Beach
NSW 2026
Phone (02) 9130 4033

Beppi's
21 Yurong St (Crn Stanley St)
East Sydney
NSW 2010
Phone (02) 9360 4558
Website