Out and About: Wollongong?

Generally, when I think of the Southern NSW coastal city of Wollongong, I know I am not alone in remembering towering dirty smoke stacks, the messy sprawl of manufacturing sheds, the cluster of industrial mish-mash that clings around the edges of the sparkling blue ocean and the thunder of laden semi-trailors lumbering up the steep road to Sydney.

However, if you cut past the city turnoff and almost bypass Wollongong, you’ll see a turn off to the Nan Tiem Buddhist Temple. On a bit of a ladies’ jaunt yesterday with my Ma and her sister (visiting this week from Perth) we did just that and after the two hours spent battling against Sydney peak hour traffic to get there, a little Buddhist calm was just what we needed!

The gardens are simple and calm, the temples are a cool and tranquil place to stand bare footed on the cold marble and reflect a little on the simplicity and wisdom of the dozens of clever Buddhist sayings dotted around the complex. There’s a strange mix of ancient culture with the oddity of 21st century conveniences, like the dog eared word documents, complete with printed bamboo borders, blue-tacked up as signs.

For a meagre $8 you can sit down to a very plain but generous vegetarian lunch, making for a rousing game of “name this wobbly colourless morsel”. I hear that on a weekend the Pilgrim’s Inn does a much fancier version for a much fancier price for those who like to mix their culture watching with some fine food.

For us though, we took our empty heads and our bellies full of who-knows-what and headed back to the insanity of Sydney.