Keep left!

This is a very tiny section of the coastal walkway that links Bondi and Tamarama beaches and is used by walkers and runners alike. It is also a scenic attraction for many visitors to Sydney.

A 'war of words' has broken out, according to the evening television news, because 'locals' (whoever they may be) are fuming that some are failing to walk/run the track on the 'correct' side. The television journalist interviewed a number of walkers/runners - most of whom were sweaty from their exertions in Sydney's current heatwave - and a surprising number possessed overseas accents; mostly North American or South African. The South African accents are not such a surprise given the number of emigrants from that country who live in Sydney's eastern suburbs. The number of North American accents intrigued me. Have they come all the way down under to run along our coastal paths? To a man/woman all the North American speakers commented they had trouble remembering that Australians travel in the opposite direction from which they are accustomed at home.

Well, it's not April 1 so I presume this report was a serious, if trivial, one. Now there's a contradiction for you. The Mayor of Waverley (herself a South African emigrant, do you mind) was wheeled out to express some platitude to the effect that people should be nice to each other and in the event of a looming clash each should move to the left.

As it happens I wandered along that walk last November and captured this pic;

Obviously foreigners!

Of course I was on the lookout for good looking men, not recalcitrant walkers but you get the idea. Real Australians would be walking on the left side of that path, wouldn't they?

Well, the television report noted that one solution might be to paint lines down the centre of the path. That brings back memories. When I was a child all of Sydney's CBD footpaths were marked with a yellow line down the centre and regardless of which direction we were headed orderly Australians minded our Ps and Qs by walking on the left hand side of that line.

Everything old is new again.