Ice in Sydney

Sydney never really gets that cold.  Winter is annoying because it gets incredibly wet and can rain for days on end, but it never gets cold enough to snow or anything like that.  Even a frosty morning isn't something I've seen in my time in Sydney.  Living in Canberra during the winters was always tough, it would regularly go below zero, but there would never be any noticeable amount of snow.  At the very least, nowhere close to enough for there to be any fun winter sports.  One of the few pleasures on the icy cold mornings was when there was a hard frost that hard settled overnight.  Walking through grass on those mornings, you could hear and feel the crunch of the ice under your foot.  If you walked past any puddles, you would also be able to crack the layer of ice that had formed on top.

In this mild wintered city, it was a surprise to see an outdoor skating rink.  It had been set up outside of St Mary's cathedral as well, which provided an almost European backdrop to what had been put together.

With Gabby and Manon driving me to do more as always, we all paid for some skates and jumped on the ice.  I struggled along, having not ice skated for at least ten years, but still had a great time.  Manon unsurprisingly was flying around the rink.  She's a snow bunny from the Alps, so all winter sports are second nature to her.  Gabby was more tentative as she made her way around slowly before moving towards the edges.

After being circled and lapped several times by Manon, we finished up and moved towards one of the nearby cafes which had been set up.  Keeping with the theme, I ordered cups of hot cider and gluwine for all of us.