Re: The road to freedom
 

Bondi Beach is the single most overrated place in Aus IMO... Conversely Manly Beach is one of the best true city beaches I've seen..... Not sure about the Corso though.

Re: The road to freedom
 

+1

There's not many cities that have a beach right next to the CBD - the only place I can think of is Durban

Re: The road to freedom
 

No that title goes to St Kilda. Not even sure you can call that mud pit a beach.

Depends what you are after in a beach. I wouldn't do Bondi if I was after turquoise smooth waters surrounded by leafy cliffs with no one on it but your clan, but for the people watch there's not much of a better place in Australia. Some really good drinking and eating spots on balconies at the north and south ends.

These days I only go to Bondi for training sessions 2 mornings a week, but for general family outings I do the harbour beaches and the north side of Botany Bay as the little ones prefer no waves.

Congwong Beach has been getting a run recently. The kids love it. Got to watch out for the exhibitionists at Little Congwong but other than that, it's great.

https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au...congwong-beach

Re: The road to freedom
 

People don't go to St Kilda for the beach though... It's in Port Phillip Bay.... Thats a side attraction, it's the burb that pulls. There's a lot more at St Kilda than Bondi or Manly.... If you combined them, you may come up to something approaching the St Kilda attractions.

Re: The road to freedom
 

I know where St Kilda is. I have been there a number of times. I didn't really see too much there that sets it apart. Luna Park is hardly a draw card. So are you saying beaches in Port Phillip Bay are not why people visit beaches there? I have been to the beaches down Rye way. I thought it was quite nice down there. Not exactly Melbourne but nice none the less.

Re: The road to freedom
 

That was my impression of Sydney's beaches too - they felt very dated and over-used. My impression of the vibe was Brighton, with sand. Not that you can see the sand on a busy day :rofl:.

I agree about Durban, fantastic beach there close to the city with amazing water.

On the whole we're blessed with wonderful beaches in Australia and I can't complain about any of them Queensland.

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Nah you only go to the gold coast if you need meth

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Which beaches did you visit in Sydney? Or should I say beach as it sounds like you only visited one and probably got stuck in the Rocks because the Lonely Planet guide book told you so.

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Hideous place. I guess it's developing a complex since Northern NSW stole its thunder.

Re: The road to freedom
 

Great to see the NSW roadmap appear today. A bit conservative in my view but at least there is a roadmap.

In other news my 3 year old daughter contracted Covid a couple of weeks back through child care. 6 of the 3 year olds got it, all completely asymptomatic except for 2 of them that had a bit a stomach irritation including my little one which we assumed to be just a child care bug. No parent knew their little ones had it until a father tested positive in routine work testing, alerted the child care and all kids got tested.

About 50% of the parents got it from the 6 kids, I am not aware of any serious symptoms suffered by the parents, I am not aware of any who weren't fully vaxxed. Somehow the rest of my family didn't get it, which I could say was the vaccine but my 7 year old didn't catch it off his sister either. Maybe a low viral load (buzzword) who knows.

So health wise, no issues, but being locked in by NSW Health, having police check you are home, testing 10 days in a row as you want the 14 day clock to start as early as possible if test positive, were just the tip of the iceberg of a pretty terrible 14 days, none of which were Covid heqlth issues at all.

On the brightside, the release letter states she doesn't have to isolate for 6 months should she become close contact again, she doesn't even need to test, which is more than likely to go through the child care again. I suspect this roadmap will get rid of close contact isolation over the next couple of months anyway, especially now kids are going back to school. This is what they did in the UK.

Not an experience we expected to see but there we go. I do appreciate people, mostly the unvaccinated, can get pretty sick and die from Covid, but the hysteria created around the management and perception of it is 100 times worse than the illness itself in most cases.

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Hindsight will tell us it was all about protecting the health system, which would definitely have been overwhelmed by the vulnerable and old.

Maybe the Chinese had it right when they built those special massive Covid only hospitals way back in the beginning.


Good to hear you and your family got through relatively unscathed.

Re: The road to freedom
 

Thanks Ozzie. There's a few mental scars there, especially for my wife. Up until 3 days before released the rule was for those in the household who don't catch it, they need to do another 14 days on top just to make sure. NSW health changed that rule last week in the nick of time. Apparently where it was going through large families the whole household had been spending up to 50 days in isolation if the whole house didn't get it early or at all.

The vaccine will sort the hospitals out. Already the projected October ICU flood has peaked well short in NSW due to vaccine coverage.

The next thing we need to work on is those booster shots, given 50% of Australia is on Pfizer, with its short life span, we need to get those boosters running about 4-6 months out, otherwise we are in trouble.

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Glad to hear you all came through it ok.
There was a discussion going on in the office tonight where I was saying surely its time to start looking at how many cases are "serious" rather than how many cases are "positive". There seems to be an obsession with just counting cases when in fact many people don't even require treatment, and - as in this case - wouldn't know they had it if they weren't tested. Not a popular view in Queensland though.

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We did discuss this at home. Do we get tested every day then reset the 14 day clock for the whole household if test positive or just not get tested, if we get symptoms, assume we have it, ride it out, avoid the shops or people for the next 10 days (like what is specified as the isolate period in the US UK and Singapore) and crack on and avoid being under the control of the NSW Govt.

A mate in the US recently had Covid go through his family. His wife got it first and officially got tested. He and his 3 kids got it, but didn't bother with an official tests, just stayed at home for 10 days. That's 1 out of that family of 5 that did not hit the official figures.

We can't get tests at chemists here yet because of state control. For states living with covid I suspect all this will change before the year is out but for those chasing zeros control will be in place for a long time to come.

Re: The road to freedom
 

Certainly not going to change up here for a while. Queensland Health just issued an alert for some sites in Brisbane, and there may be more to come by the morning. Groundhog Day looms.....
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-...bane/100495896