Monday, 10 August 2015

Tuesday August 11th in Novatel Brighton Beach Hotel

Hello Blogsters and Blogsterettes,

It is exactly 2:12 p.m.Tuesday, August 11th here at Novatel Brighton Beach Hotel in Sydney Australia. Ross and I are happy to be back in Australia, after over 5 weeks of living out of our suitcases.

First, though a description of our last day in San Francisco.

The Hyatt Regency San Francisco was definitely the best hotel we stayed in. It was great. I got up way early, as I mentioned in my last blog, and had coffee down in the Atrium Cafe, The Swiftwater Cafe. After I finished the blog I went and got showered and shaved and headed back down for the buffet breakfast.



The Swiftwater Cafe is named for the lovely waterfall right next to my table. Lovely background music.I read my Kindle Books on the mini-iPad and waited for Ross to awaken and join the living.
Eventually, he did and we got him a buffet breakfast as well.

Our last day in San Francisco was a fun day, with Ross having a great idea, a self-guided tour on Segways. We went to a Segway Hire co., up on the corner of Balboa and 30th Ave. and had 15 minutes instruction from two young San Franciscan teenage girls. They did a great job, and were very calm and clear with us. Ross has been on Segways a couple of times before so he needed less instruction, although not much since I am a well-known gifted athlete.

 No tour group, just us two. We decided to take a 2 hour cruise. We went through part of the Golden Gate Park, which was fun and they had some magnificent old huge trees, including some nice Eucalypt trees.

Then we went around the park, through the Bison Herd enclosure and headed out onto the beachside path and went towards Golden Gate Bridge and Lands End Park.

The Segways were remarkably easy to manage, although it did strain your calf muscles; mine are still sore. They are also a little tricky to get off and a little tricky over side hills and rough terrain. Still, lots of fun and at top speed a bit faster than a human can run. Slowing down and turning was easier than I feared.


We rode along the beach, travelling roughly North. The beach was wide and sandy, although a darker sand than we are used to. Intrepid swimmers braved the cold water. Lots of surfers were doing their thing as well.


Eventually we arrived at Lands End National Park and explored on a smaller trail some of which was sand or dirt. Quite fun to negotiate really. I liked the Segway very much; I want one. Here's a photo of the partially fogged in Golden Gate Bridge from our Lands End Park lookout. Lots of tourists doing the same and we were trying not to collide with any of them. We kept our steeds well under control and hit nobody.


Ross found he could even operate the Segway one or no handed and take photos whilst on the machine. I felt more comfortable getting off to take my photos, for the most part.

We traveled about 10-12 miles or so on Segways and had a ball. Through the beautiful Golden Gate Park and the Lands End National Park, then back down the road to Fulton Street which was took along the foot path until we hit 30th Ave. crossroad, then went up 30th Ave til we hit Balboa and the Segway Hire Shop.

After returning the Segways, we got on the bus that went a long way down to the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero.


The Ferry Building built in 1915, one hundred years ago.Nice gourmet food shops and kitchen shops and restaurants and bakers in there.

Ross found a lovely specialist fungi shop. Very beautiful fungi displayed including , surprisingly, Australian Truffles, which retailed for $75 US per ounce!


The Italian Truffles were cheap at only $33.75 US per ounce!


More beautiful mushrooms. You have to take away and cook them yourselves, however.

Then we had a great all-beef hot dog (The Budhist kind; one with everything) at the American Eatery.


Beautiful hotdogs on a lovely fresh sour dough roll. We had cheese, sauerkraut, american mustard and fried onions on ours. Yummy.

Then we walked down Market Street, and visited Ross's second favorite Hardware store on 4th Ave, Coles Hardware, "Coles is good for the Soul" off Market South of Market (SoMa district).

Then continued up Market at a leisurely pace and finally got to the giant Westfield Shopping Center again and had a iced coffee and rested our aching calfs and feet.

Finally went straight to the BART Station and out to the airport station, then to the hotel, picked up our luggage and then back to the airport to check-in and have a Mexican Dinner before boarding at about 9:30 p.m.

The jet took off at about 10:30 and we got into Sydney about 15 hours later or about 6:30 a.m. local time Tuesday morning.

Tomorrow's flight to the Gold Coast is VA517 with Virgin Airlines. We leave at 11:10 a.m. and arrive at Coolangatta at a projected 12:30 p.m. Thanks again Graysie for accepting the task of picking us up. Looking forward to a couple of days of napping and resting once I get back into good old Unit 34 Saks On Fifth in Burleigh Heads.

Ross and Lance's Blog

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