The Coogee to Bondi walk is well known on the backpacker trail in Sydney for being the sort of stunning landscape experience that even locals will get out of bed for. Granted, not before lunch though. And today, dog-tired form all the recent festivities, we can’t manage the full two hour walk and settle instead for lolling about on the sand collecting sunburn.

We drive out in Kylie’s boyfriend’s car. Kylie, for the record, is currently discovering the joys of dating an older man – namely, material goods. It’s an Alpha Romeo, and, I’m told, not the sort of flashy car that draws the immediate attention of the uneducated masses, but rather genuine car connoisseurs.

He picked it up for a song, apparently, with such minor defects as the coat hooks in the back being upside down. Sure enough, we do get lots of looks, but more likely because people are wondering which clown in his right mind let two girls like us loose in a car like that.

In any event, we manage a stately arrival at Coogee – or try to, but due to the usual eastern suburbs congestion have to park about three suburbs back and stroll down the baking pavement.

I’d forgotten what a stressful experience driving to eastern Sydney is, and, what’s worse, trying to get back to the city in peak hour evening traffic. It’s no wonder people who live there joke that Anzac parade (no more than 2 k’s in from the coast, as the crow flies) is too far west for them to bother.

Down by the water, the sun is scorching, and with my pasty cum-European feet I collect a scalding on the soles and a sunburn on the top. We play a classic bout of spot-the-Aussie – failing, for the most part, since we’re surrounded by eastern European backpackers and French tourists, who you can spot beyond the shadow of doubt on account of their penchant for string bathers. No Aussie with any experience in the matter would invite a sunburnt arse like that.