It’s hot here … well it is to a pom! With a forecast of twenty eight degrees and bright sunshine, we did the obvious thing today and went walking. Mad dogs and englishmen and all that ….. Still it was a lovely walk.
We started by walking up to Circular Quay from the hotel. Our hotel is well placed centrally at Hyde Park, so it is only 20 minutes or so up to Circular Quay which is the main transport hub. We got on the Manly Ferry. The only difference between the Manly Ferry and a harbour cruise is that the ferry costs about a twentieth of a harbour cruise and you don’t get a commentary. However, that could be seen as a positive anyway. The route is great – takes you right past the opera house and bridge and across to Manly with a great view of the harbour entrance.
We got off and walked round to Manly Sailing Club as I had arranged to visit the sailability club which had a session this morning. They were really friendly and we spent an interesting hour or so watching the session getting under way and seeing how they do things.
We then walked across to Manly Beach to see Australians at play on a Saturday morning. That was entertaining for a minute or two, so then we went back across and found the start of the Manly to Spit Bridge walk – the Manly Scenic Walkway. This walk goes round the north shore and through Sydney Harbour National Park. We didn’t realise that with high tide we would need to get slightly wet, but it was all part of the variety of the walk. Some of the walk was on track, some on board walk, a lot of steps up to the top of the headland and then some rock-hopping and some along the beach (well in the sea actually because of the tide).
Overall, a lovely walk with some fantastic views across the harbour. We even saw some local wildlife; lizards, brush turkeys and lots of sulphur-crested cockatoos. From Spit Bridge we caught the bus back to Wynyard Station and then walked back to the hotel. We definitely did our 10,000 steps today … actually we did over 25,000 ….
