Picto Diary - 20 June 2026 - 17 Inkerman Street, Mosman, NSW

Above: Taranga Zoo. Sydney, Australia. 20 June 2026.
Seeking the Kimberly
Image: Koala.

Obligatory while in Sydney. Go to the Taranga Zoo and see all the indigenous OZ animals.

Above: Taranga Zoo. Sydney, Australia. 20 June 2026.
Seeking the Kimberly

Above: Taranga Zoo. Sydney, Australia. 20 June 2026.
Seeking the Kimberly.

On ferry from Taranga Zoo to Circular Quay.

Above: Taranga Zoo. Sydney, Australia. 20 June 2026.
Seeking the Kimberly.

Emu.

Above: Taranga Zoo. Sydney, Australia. 20 June 2026.
Seeking the Kimberly.

Dingo.

Above: Manly Beach, Sydney, Australia. 20 June 2026.
Seeking the Kimberley.

Old stomping grounds. North Shore. Not far from our Mosman home on Inkerman Street. The better-known Bondi Beach, site of a recent terrorist shooting, is on the south shore of Sydney Harbor.

Above: Mosman, NSW. Australia. 20 June 2026.
Seeking The Kimberly.
17 Inkerman Street.

We lived in the Inkerman Street house for all of three years, from 1976 to 1979—a little slice of Sydney life that still echoes with memories.

Here’s one of those memories:

Today, driving through the old Mosman neighborhood, a familiar intersection suddenly jogged a long-dormant memory, like a well-placed lob dropping just inside the baseline. We were in the 'hood of the Mosman Lawn Tennis Club, an unassuming green sanctuary where TIMDT first learned to play tennis. I didn't see the tennis club itself. I speculated that sometime in the last fifty years its value as residential property had pushed the membership to sell (See below Note).

Soon after moving into the Inkerman Street house, TIMDT marched into the Mosman Lawn Tennis Club unannounced, tennis racket in hand, and cheerfully asked, “How does a girl get a game around here?” A squadron of seventy-something Australian ladies—sharp-eyed veterans of both the court and life—clocked her American accent immediately. Instead of raising an eyebrow, they opened the gates wide, adopted her on the spot, and spent the next three years turning her into one of their own. TIMDT became one of them—steady, sly, and dangerously accurate. A tennis player forged not by power, but by patience, placement, and a deep respect for the geometry of the court.

Note: Here are the results of a Grok search on the Mosman Lawn Tennis Club, apparently still in existence, though I can't confirm it is at the same location as fifty years ago. (3) Grok / X

Note: Those large windows seen in my image of 17 Inkerman Street looked out over Middle Harbor setting a viewing standard that we have tried to replicate, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, in homes where we have lived since.

Note: The house at left in the image belonged to the Richard Davis's. Dick was a Qantas 747 pilot. His daughter, Penny and our oldest, FeeBee, then nine-year-olds, were best friends. I remember one of their ditties:

Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg.
Wonder Woman lost her bosom flying TAA.

(TAA, a domestic Australian Airline, since defunct).

Above: Mosman, NSW. Australia. 20 June 2026.
Seeking The Kimberly
17 Inkerman Street.

We had a delightful, serendipitous encounter on 20 June 2026 in Mosman, NSW, while hunting for our old house at 17 Inkerman Street where our family lived from 1976 to 1979.

Drums and I were wandering the street below Inkerman Street, craning our necks like hopeful spectators trying to catch a glimpse of our old house through the canopy of trees. That’s when we bumped into John Forrest and his son David. John is the principal of Six Jay Real Estate.

I mentioned to John that fifty years ago—back in the late 1970s—we were renters of the house perched just above where we stood. In those days, this lower slope was still untouched bushland; no houses had yet dared to claim the hillside. John smiled and pointed to his own handsome home to the right in the photo—built in 2020, nestled below our old place—with its private boat dock stretching out to the sparkling waters of Middle Harbor. A man who clearly knows how to drop anchor in the right spot.

As we approached, father and son were giving John’s formidable Ford Ranger Raptor a thorough bath. The truck was kitted out like a gladiator ready for battle—lifted, armored, with snorkel, and clearly no stranger to rough country. John had just returned from an off-road adventure in South Australia, the kind that leaves red dust in the wheel wells and stories in the glovebox.

John mentioned having lived a combined thirty years across Singapore, Chicago, and New York—cities that could make even the toughest Outback track feel like a Sunday drive. When he learned I was from Utah, his eyes lit up. He recounted closing a major deal years ago: the sale of 2,500 residential units in the American Midwest directly to the LDS Church. He’d negotiated with the Presiding Bishop himself—the man who essentially serves as the Church’s CEO of investments.

John chuckled as he told how the Presiding Bishop’s office had promptly run a thorough internet search on him and his firm “to make sure I was on the up and up.” Even global church financiers like their real estate partners properly vetted. Smart move—especially when dealing with a bloke whose truck looks ready to conquer both the Outback and Wall Street.

Above: Military Road, Mosman, NSW. Australia. 20 June 2026.
Seeking The Kimberly

Fifty years ago, Saturday mornings in Mosman often meant a leisurely stroll with TIMDT along the chic stretch of Military Road—window-shopping, people-watching, and soaking in the genteel rhythm of Sydney’s North Shore.

Half a century later, Drums and I found ourselves retracing those very footsteps, closing a graceful loop in time.

While browsing one of the bookstores, I was charmed by the young clerk behind the counter: a bright-eyed high school girl from Scottsdale, Arizona, staying for the northern hemisphere summer with her sister, the shop’s owner. She lit up like a desert sunrise the moment she heard our American accents.

When we mentioned we were from Utah, she let out a delighted shriek.
“Oh my gosh—not just Americans… but from my neighborhood!”

Then, with perfect comic timing and a theatrical hand to her heart, she added, “The US just beat Australia in the World Cup! Here I am, an American in Australia… I don’t know whether to cheer or apologize!”

We all laughed, three expats momentarily bridging the Pacific on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Mosman. Some things, it seems, never change—Military Road still sparkles, and a familiar accent can still turn an ordinary errand into a small, joyful reunion.

Addendum:

Thanks Steve
Joe,
Gosford, NSW

Steve,”

Your pictorial of Broome, OZ, has shown me what I missed when I was doing my “circumridifction”, counterclockwise, of OZ in the mid-1980s on a GS- starting and ending in Sydney. I decided that I didn’t want to spend the time on a diversion, though short, to a sideshow, and so, I continued on.

Thanks for filling in that blank.

Ahn-Rhee,
Larkspur, CA

Handsome grandson Steve! Where does he get it?
Tony,
Park City, UT

Ha ha.

Steve.

Thanks so much for the informative commentary and great pics. I hope to visit Australia someday! Among my ancestors are Brits who came from the poor houses and prisons of England to populate Australia. Born in England, Richard and Elizabeth Merchant and his 12 children joined with the Latter-day Saints in 1853 in New South Wales. Richard and Elizabeth and the six younger children boarded the Jennie Ford to sail for America in 1856. As the ship was leaving the harbor in Sydney, unbeknownst to Elizabeth, Richard jumped ship and swam to shore. Elizabeth and her six settled in Beaver, Utah, thanks to the elder who had baptized them in Australia and then supported them in Beaver. Elizabeth died in 1863 in Beaver, reportedly of a broken heart. In 2020, I met some of the Australian descendants of Richard and Elizabeth when they came to the U.S. on a genealogical tour. The eighth of the twelve children, Caroline Annie Merchant, is my second great grandmother. She married my second great grandfather, Thomas Henry Wilson, Sr., in Payson, UT, in 1859. She was 18, he was 29. They had ten children.

So, that’s my Australian connection! Thanks again.

Best,

Apple Store,
Salt Lake City, UT

This pic is of Caroline at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The boy, unidentified, is likely a grandson.

Great post, Apple Store!