Sydney - Day 5

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What a fantastic day we had today, in every way. Last night when were thinking about what to do today we were...let´s just say less than optimists about the posibilities for today, but the weatherman said today we would have clouds with sunny spells and no rain so we put our trust on him and planned the 10 Km walk for today. It seemed like the perfect day for a walk.

It turned out that the weather was fantastic, sunny all day but not excessively hot, always oscilating between 26-30 C, really nice. :-)

According to the guide we had to go to Manly for the start of the walk. The guide also recommended  to catch bus 151 so we went to the Queen Victoria Building (where most buses have a stop) and looked at the times...It turns out bus 151 only works in the high hours of the night and early hours of the morning, in other words, in order to catch that bus we would have had to get up at 4 in morning or earlier...

Not sure who wrote that guide, but he either has a serious problem with cocaine, anphetamines or something of the kind which prevents him from sleeping like normal people at night or is just making fun of us his dearest readers. Who in his right mind is going to get up at 4 in the morning to catch a bus!! on a holiday!! this guide writer just lost a lot of credit with us...

Anyway, we asked around and found an alternative bus: 169. It's not as direct but it would take us there, in fact Manly Wharf is the end of the line. As we still had 20 minutes to wait we decided to have a close look to the QVB
(Queen Victoria Building)

And just on the top floor I found the below jewel! :-) What will it say?

Queen Elizabeth sent this letter to the Mayor of Sydney back in 1988 to be open in the year 2085 and read to the citizens of Sydney.

Bus 169 was late, apparently there was  a  fire incident somewhere along the route but they were still operating so we got in and after 3 bus changes we made it to Manly at middday.

It turned out that Manly is quite a nice village, and had a pretty good beach too!
So by unanimous vote we decided to spend som time on the beach and then go and have lunch in one of the tens of local places we had at our disposal.

It´s not exactly the kind of beach you would use for swimming though

The walk we were about to start was the following:

It was about 10Km and an estimated duration of about 4 hours.
So we packed everything from the beach, had lunch and got a bottle of water. The guide recommended taking water with us but at that point I wasn't certain whether he needed the water to rehydrate from his nocturnal life or whether we really needed it so we both opted to take a small bottle with us just in case.

It turned out there is nowhere in the whole path where you can buy any water so what you take with you is all you have. Okay, the guide just got some credit back from me. We really missed not having another bottle each.

The views were really impresive and it was a walk really worth doing. I would seriously recommend anyone going to Sydney with more than 3 days to come and do it. It is really good.

Here is where we started:

and it just got better and better

Half way through

At one point we reched a small and secluded beach and it was so hot that we just got drawn into it, we couldn't resist it, it even had a small waterfall where you managed to refresh a little bit. So we made camp there for half an hour or so.

The best part of the walk it was the great variation from sea to forest to rocks, then a beach...it was always changing.

Amazing walk! Once we got to Spit bridge (the end of the walk), we took the 144 to spit junction and then the L90 to the centre again. The drawback of this walk is probably getting there and then getting out of there and back to Sydney but the walk itself is truly worth it. I believe is possible going to Mainly Wharf by ferry, it may be a better option. Not sure. We certainly had the chance to see all the surburbs in the north of Sydney!

Now it's time for a nice hot shower, a good sleep and see what the day brings us tomorrow on our last day in Sydney!





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