Seda: We got to Sydney.
It’s been rainy and cloudy since we arrived.
We are stuck in a dull house-sit.
There is nothing to write about.…

This was the case for about 5 days. Then Jacob came and saved us, so we now have some interesting stuff to write about again!

Jacob for us is a great example of how travelling removes all distances and barriers in the way of real friendships. It was the winter of 2018 when we hosted Jacob through Couchsurfing.

We had already been planning our travelling year by this point and bombarded him with our endless questions. He’d been travelling for almost a year himself then and gave us loads of great tips.

He’s been our friend ever since and we stayed in touch not just when he was in Warwick but when he was in Stafford and everywhere else afterwards. Last time we saw Jacob was back in Warwick, March 2019.

Even though we knew we were going to visit his country Australia at some point during our travels, I never thought that our times here would match his return home and we would meet and spend time with him. We did plan to visit his parents for sure but Jacob’s presence here just made it better!

Just like we proudly showed him our country, of course Jacob wanted to show us his country too. He took us to a great place called Palm Beach where people were flocking in on tour buses to see. This is because the soap opera Home and Away is filmed there. Summer Bay, which is actually Palm Beach is in North Sydney.

Jacob had no mercy and took us to two walks with a climb. First one was heaps of steps as Aussies say. Effortlessly climbing Jacob turned at the top of the hill, looked at us tongues sticking out and panting and said “Sorry guys, I got the wrong one, it’s that side we should be climbing”!

Thankfully having a nice lunch and a drink in between re-energised us and we were good to go again. There was no way we were going to back down on a simple walk because we are a decade older than Jacob!

Palm Beach Lighthouse Walk awaits…We walked nice and flat all the way to the bottom of the hill, to the decision point!

There are two routes to the top; the more gentle Access Trail or the shorter, but steeper, Smugglers Track. Jacob didn’t even suggest to go up the smugglers track. We actually had no problem climbing the rather steep smugglers track for half an hour in the 30 degrees heat, none whatsoever!?

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The walk up wasn’t bad at all, and once you get up there the views are well worth it. It was a cloudy/smokey day without a clear view but still ocean on one side and inlet on the other, these views were breathtaking.

To top it off, there is an impressive lighthouse behind you. The only problem was my hair. After keeping it tied back for 8 months, this was definitely the wrong day to let it down! At least I wasn’t the only one!

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I’ve never watched Home and Away. Andy and Jacob tried to tell me about some of the actors, I understand this was a very popular series in UK back in the 80s and 90s, but my English would have been at the elementary level back then anyway.

We did come down on the smugglers track to appreciate the life threatening conditions faced by the members of this profession as well.

Since we have no car now and Jacob got himself a car recently, he kindly picked us up and dropped us back making multiple trips. If he got a good deal low mileage car, that sure is not the case anymore thanks to us. Never losing the travelling spirit, he’s already making plans to remove the back seats of his Mazda to make it sleep-in friendly. I wonder if the lease company would mind me doing the same with my beamer?!

Just like we were asking things about travelling last year, we are now asking Jacob what is it like to be “back”. The funny thing is it doesn’t matter where we live, as long as we live it well, surrounded with good friends and good food and maybe a bit of good wine, all is well!