Our last day today, so we headed up to Palm Beach to walk up Barranjoey Head to the lighthouse. How appropriate then that we walked past them filming Home and Away at the Surf Lifesaving Club. Chatting to the security people it seemed that we might have recognised one of the actors there from when we watched 30 years ago, but we haven’t watched it since living here, so we didn’t bother to check. The soap is the second longest running soap on Australian television (after Neighbours obviously!) and the pilot was first shown in 1988. It was originally going to be called Refuge, but the name was changed to the “friendlier” title of Home and Away once they actually began production. If we want to see what they were filming today, we’ll need to watch it in the UK in just over 6 months time as apparently we are 6 months behind the Australian version.
From the SLSC we walked along the beach and took the path up to the Barranjoey Head lighthouse. The headland was first named as “Barrenjuee” by Governor Phillip in 1788 from the Aboriginal name for small wallaby, but gradually was adapted through usage to Barranjoey. The lighthouse was built in 1881 and is now automated, but still an important navigational mark for boats coming north from Sydney into the Hawkesbury and Pittwater.
The view from the top made it well worth the climb. The head is actually part of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, though separated from the majority of the park by the Pittwater.
We then leave early tomorrow morning for the airport and …. home …..