Rowkin Rovings Blog

Our plan today was to go and see if our first ever real estate purchase was still standing and to walk down Memory Lane. The Three Amigos set off by bus into the city and then swapped to a train out to the famous Bondi Junction.

To get to Bondi Beach you need to get another bus from the junction to the beach. As we had decided it wasn’t warm enough for a swim, we gave that option a miss. We have discovered that Sue and Darryl’s daughter lives only one block from our old flat with her partner and three year old daughter. We went around to their place and had a tour around the very modern and open three story home complete with 360 degree view of the city.

We then headed over to the very upmarket Westfield shopping centre at the junction to catch up with Darryl daughter Sarah and little one Angelica. Bondi Junction never looked like this 30 years ago and has turned into one upmarket trendy place.

We walked about ten minutes down Bronte Road to the apartment which we were glad to see was still standing in relatively good nick.

Our apartment is the one with the open shutters. This is where we were living when we got married. The day was extremely wet and Di was trying to get to the bottom of the steps into the car without dragging her puff wedding cake dress in all the wet. It was then off to a boat to get married on Sydney Harbour and when they pronounced us man and wife all the Kookuburras in the Botannical Gardens started laughing.

Back to the city to one of the most beautiful buildings in the World – Queen Victoria Building (abbreviated to QVB) which is a heritage-listed late-nineteenth-century building.

Designed as a marketplace, it was used for a variety of other purposes, underwent remodelling and suffered decay until its restoration and return to its original use in the late twentieth century. A number of time throughout its life it was slated for demolition.
The detailed tiling and stained glass is indeed impressive. It does carry very high end retail stores but just to wander around is more than enough.

Went back home to get ready for catching up with Owen and Mark again tonight but we took the opportunity to take Tiffany for a walk.
She gets taken for a walk twice a day down to Abbortsford Cove which you can see is special. This is two minutes from Sue and Darryl’s place.

We walk along the foreshore with Tiffany and she seems totally oblivious to her grand surroundings. Sir Arthur Renwick, a doctor, philanthropist and politician built his home here in 1890 and called it Abbotsford House. Renwick sold the property in 1903 to Albert Grace, and in 1918 it became the site of a Nestlé chocolate factory, with the house used initially for chocolate production and later as their administrative offices. The factory was closed in 1991, after which the area was redeveloped as the medium-density Abbotsford Cove housing complex.

Didn’t put this photo in from dinner the other night of us. This was taken from the Sydney Rowing Club where the guys are members with a great backdrop and sunset. Gotta love this place.