Met up with Rel at uni at 17:00; actually got there around 16:30 (and so did he) but I didn't manage to find him in any of the usual places, and was feeling too lazy to go further up the tower. Turns out he was in the megalab, further up the tower.
Looked up some caches in the Bondi Beach area; found a few, but wasn't feeling up to the research required.
~17:30, walked to TH to catch an X84 express from a bus stop at the flat end of Hyde Park - Elizabeth St, I think. Given a choice of sitting at the bus stop or standing while waiting for a bus, I decided to jump the stone (also sit-on-able) fence and take a seat on the grass.
Arrived at Bondi Beach after a packed bus ride (despite the bus being one of the bendy ones) - the ride wasn't so bad, I've been on trains more full than that bus - and jumped off the parking lot curb half a metre into dry sand.
My sandals promptly filled up with sand. Rather aptly named footwear.
Bondi beach is not one that I would wander barefoot in during the night. While I'm fairly sure I saw no syringes, there were certainly things that suggested their presence. Not frequent enough to make me put the sandals back on, but often enough to make me slightly worried.
Walked along in the shallow sand/surf for quite a bit. There were no shells. Rel's shoes were waterproof, but his pants were not, so he stayed on the sand. He noted that the tide seemed to be coming in.
Sat on the sand watching the cloudy sunset for an indeterminate amount of time, covering my feet with sand so that they would dry off. It was windy; both of us seemed colder than usual.
Continued walking towards the east end of the beach after they'd dried; the sun continued to set as we trekked quickly over flat rocks, heading for the Ray O'Keefe Reserve. The flat rocks turned into massive boulders, and not noticing any man made way up the cliffs, we decided to try climbing the rocks.
Halfway there we rested on a large rock for an indeterminate amount of time to catch our breath. There were scissors on it, probably belonging to the nearby fisherman.
We never got there. After making a number of 'epic leaps' from rock to rock, we reached a dead end around 19:20 when faced with a relatively vertical wall that had hand/foot holds half way up, and light that disappeared in an astonishingly fast, gradual way.
There was a man sitting on a ledge that may have led to the fence. Unfortunately it was too dark to risk it so we backtracked.
Several photos of the expansive dusk view was attempted, but all were varying degrees of fail, as the camera decided flash was necessary, but the sea was obviously too far away from the cliffs for the flash to actually light it up; the dust in the lens showed up as circular fungus-like patches on the images. (They were photoshopped out later. Hurrah for the heal tool.)
I did manage a decent picture of Rel (who is on the verge of being overexposed) against a much darker dusk sky, with the cliffs silhouetted behind him. It also underwent photoshopping for red eye and fungus removal later.
On the way back, we were treated to a huge, translucent red moon on the horizon, rising in the darkening blue dusk sky. I'd specifically chosen today because it was a full moon. Its valley features were not really visible, the sunlight reflecting off its surface showing red from the excess atmosphere it travelled through; it seem entirely ghostly. Rel remarked that it would get brighter as it rose.
Sure enough, when we next paused to look and rest, it seemed slightly smaller, and was a familiar yellow. It was framed on the left and bottom by an L shaped rock, the silhouette of which, at that time and given the amount of light left, was somewhat difficult to distinguish from the navy blue sky. I attempted to take a photo of it but failed miserably; taking pictures of the moon requires a tripod, or at least a much steadier hand.
Rel was all wet, but being fresh sweat he didn't actually smell bad. My clothes were damp but Rel noted that I was remarkably dry and supposed that being perpetually cooler meant that physical activity simply resulted in being pleasantly warm rather than overly hot.
The tide had truly come in by the time we reached flatter rock, and we were cut off from continuing; fortunately this was also the place where we'd crossed a private boat ramp earlier. I'd wondered why it was there because it seemed to lead to a plain of rock. We climbed the short carpark curb and simply walked along the sealed road back to the shops, passing Biddigal Reserve and some bikers on the way.
Had fish and chips at the Fish House, and then got ice cream from New Zealand Natural. The stuff melted rather quickly; we ended up standing next to some mosaic-covered seats, and then in an attempt to reduce the windchill, on a bridge over the sand on the other side of the road. (It didn't work.) My hair kept blowing everywhere.
Ended up getting a taxi back to Bondi Junction train station because Rel had to meet his brother at 21:30 for his birthday; it was 21:30 by the time we finished our ice cream and he didn't want to be excessively late.
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