
Here is February’s cruise ship. Compare this beautiful blue sky with the threatening storm that hovered over January’s ship.
The season of summer continues in Sydney. After the storms and humidity of January, February has been generally delightful: clear blue skies, normal humidity and lots of warm but not scorching days. Today is different — although the sky is a flawless, cloudless blue, the temperature is climbing to a forecast 39C (that’s 102F). As you can imagine, the beaches will be mobbed even though it’s a Thursday!

Hot summer day at Brighton Beach a couple of weeks ago. This wide sandy reach runs along the western edge of Botany Bay.
This February brought the beginning of the Year of the Monkey, and Sydney (as usual) threw a party. You can see my other Chinese New Year photos here.

Chinese New Year flags and lanterns, Martin Place
In the run-up to the The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival, ANZ Bank gets into the spirit and converts some of its ATMs to GAYTMs.
Dance flash mob!
I was walking down Martin Place to the train station to go home on Monday, when suddenly music started thumping and apparent passersby began to dance.

All together now, big finish! Not sure about the guy in the red shirt, though.
If you can remember the opening sequence of the film “Footloose”, you’ll know why I took these two photos. Well I had to, really, because that song was playing!
Season Markers
These two locations will appear regularly in my monthly posts. As I said in my January post, it’s hard to tell what season it is in Sydney because there are no dramatic changes such as snow and ice. However, these plane trees in Martin Place do lose their leaves, and as I intend to take this shot around 5:30pm each month you’ll see it get darker and darker, and then light again as spring and summer creep up. And while I don’t think any trees in the photo of Sandringham Garden in Hyde Park lose their leaves, the wisteria certainly does, and the flower displays change with the seasons.

Martin Place, 5:30pm

Sandringham Garden, Hyde Park, 1pm
GAYTM’s! I love it! So fun to see summer while I curl up with a blanket and a cup of tea on a cold winter night 😉 I look forward to seeing your season markers as the year turns, too…
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I like that a big bank can have a sense of humour. That is so rare! Although I don’t envy you the cold winter night, I’m not looking forward to my sweltering apartment when I get home tonight. 😦
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Gay festivals are really fun to photograph because of all the outfits, but I think it’s about time that they start arranging hetero-pride festivals too.
“Hetero and proud – the future of the human race depends on it” could be a slogan.
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LOL, what a great idea! Though I think th costumes might be rather dull.
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i saw a couple of them gargantuan cruise ships at the harbour when i was over, just mind boggling how they stay afloat. GAYTMS, Aussieland is way ahead in this respect :).
ken
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Be sure to check out my March post, as the cruise ship will be Queen Mary — which is so big that it won’t all fit in the frame from the spot where I’m taking these photos! At low tide, there is very little water under QM’s keel when berthed in Sydney.
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surely 🙂
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I recognised that cruise ship! https://smallbluegreenwords.wordpress.com/2016/01/30/california-dreaming/
Sydney is ALWAYS on the go it seems. Never a dull moment there. I shall look forward to seeing more of your beautiful environment this year. As for the dancers, the guy in red simply was not trying hard enough at all! And I love the foot photos. Nice one Kaz 😀
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Amazing that you remembered the ship! I saw it in your post but sure didn’t make a connection. I guess we get so many here that they all blend together to me, apart from the Cunards (Quens Elizabeth, Victoria and Mary), which have such striking paint schemes. As for the feet, I took a couple dozen shots and hoped that at least one would turn out! 🙂
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Sydney put on a fine show for summer Kaz and your words and images show it beautifully.
What a difference an hour or two makes. Ive been visiting this year for a bit and we’ve been having high 30s to 40+ even this past week. I’d love to go to the beach. Thanks for quenching my thirst! Great post!
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Thank you Robyn. Yes, it was very hot last week! 😦
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It was! 😎 Thankfully we’re having a bit of reprieve this week. Have a great one Kaz!
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In the midst of winter on the northern hemisphere, it is nice to be reminded that somewhere in this world, folks are enjoying the weather! What luck to catch that flash mob. 🙂
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It was lucky, wasn’t it! Also lucky that I had my camera that day. 😉 Thanks for stopping by.
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