Mardi Gras

Being up in Sydney for Mardi Gras weekend would be a bit remiss without checking out what the fuss was about!

Saturday morning, with a bit of a sore head, I made it out of bed and down to The Rocks, to meet Belinda and Bumble for brunch. We found a cafe and got stuck into eggs, outside among the cobblestones. Before long, with the sun blazing, we found our way up stairways, to a rooftop beer garden, for a beer overlooking the harbour.

A couple more pubs along the walk back down into town, including The Australian, and back to the hotel, thirst well and truly quenched! Bumble and I found Jen, and then the we made our way to Hyde Park and walked across with the rest of the crowd to Oxford Street.

The crowd was large, noisy and colourful. And very big. We joined the stream of people down to street side, and realised that unless we had camped out here all day, we were not going to get very close. We found dinner, and then played with the idea of seeing the parade.

Amongst the revelers here, celebrating Gay Pride, were all sorts of people really. Oldies grumbling about it all, and straight couples dressed up in gay garb - what the? This felt insulting, really. I mean, kinda like a kid getting a gift on their sibling's birthday. It's not your day, kids!

After about 30 minutes of the parade, and hearing the Dykes on Bikes go past for ages, and seeing the tops of a couple of floats, we decided to abandon, and headed down to the other end of the city. Drinks at the Opera Bar, with a view of the Bridge and House, was actually impressive enough.

The next morning I incredibly managed to get up early, and got the train out to catch Leils and Vincey, and Zamarah, in their short window of free time for the weekend. Was lovely to catch up. Then, more train system navigation had me meet up with Jess and Andrew. We had coffee in Brighton, and then walked along the beach soaking in the sun.

I was super, super early for my flight back! Lesson learnt!