Our Sydney trip continued today with us driving back to the Northern Beaches to meet friends for breakfast. The Northern Beaches stretch from Manly on the bottom of the peninsula to Palm Beach at the top with a dozen stunning beaches in between. We lived at Dee Why before we moved up to Brisbane and, whilst the Moreton Bay Area is pretty gorgeous, it has no beaches that compare to these. Most of them have a salt water swimming pool built in the 1950s that can fill to the brim when the waves are high. After work and school, families congregate near them to have a swim or a barbie or play a few games before bed. Aussies love their outdoor lives.

We met our friends Rod and Kerry for breakfast plus another couple of their friends who are planning to buy a boat in the Med and wanted to pick our brains. It was so good to talk with them all and share so many exciting plans: taking a motor home around the US, racing Hobey cats in the World Championship, sailing to Australia from Greece, meeting up with family in this island or that country. No question that they wouldn’t be able to do it. Just what did they have to do to make it happen.

It’s so inspiring to be around people like that. When we were planning our big trip from the Caribbean back in 2009 everyone we told was full of gloom and doom. How could we give up our jobs and go on such a dangerous trip? What about the storms? How could we leave our families? Very few said ‘How fantastic! Good on you!’ Sitting in that cafe today I was struck again with how good it is to mix with can-do people. Their enthusiasm is infectious, their ideas make us start to think and plan new adventures. Their interest in what we’ve done and what we’re doing makes us realise that we too are can-do people and hopefully we might inspire a few others to head off on an adventure of their own.

So stop reading this and get planning your next trip! Hopefully we’ll see you out there!