Day 6
Deb had an awful night sleep due to the mozzie bites all over her legs. Her mood was improved slightly with the weather outside being gloriously sunny! The plan was to get up and ready and make our way over to Manly. The ferry was frequent so we wandered down after breakfast to catch it. The journey was quick and efficient and we were at Manly wharf in no time. Only a small amount of roll from the ferry as we crossed the opening of Sydney harbour to the Pacific Ocean
Manly is a northern suburb of Sydney but feels a million miles away. The beach front is more like a friendly British seaside resort as opposed to the sometimes harsh and boisterous appearance of Sydney. We had decided to try and hire a bike to see some of the coastline. We walked to one of the bike rental shops but were left disappointed as they require photo ID which was all the way back in our apartment! Scott decided we could do a scenic walk so we proceeded back to the information centre to pick up a walking map! On our way we stopped at a chemist to buy some more substantial bite cream, the assistant looked in horror at Debs bites stating they might be infected Deb ensured her they weren’t so she gave her a hydrocortisone cream and some stronger oral antihistamines.
The Manly Scenic Walkway is a 9km route which passes along the harbour coast through beaches, bushland and rugged outlook points from cliff tops. The tide appeared to be low so there were lots of exposed rocks where we decided to go rock pooling and climbed over the exposed surfaces. Our Merrels came in very useful for this task!! As we walked into the National Park protected bushlands it felt very isolated where all you could hear was the sound of birds. Very hard to believe this is still the very heart of Sydney. Deb decided she needed the loo and we came across a public toilet we were half expecting a hole in the ground but we were surprised to see a glistening stainless steal tardis type toilet. Deb stepped in with anticipation as the door closed and a voice told her she had 10 minutes then some music started playing!! It was quite different to uk public toilets!
Scott took the opportunity to hunt out a cache located somewhere on a rocky outcrop but we left empty handed after the search turned up a blank. We seem to be struggling to find them recently so hoping luck will change soon!!
After what was a lovely long walk we returned back to the Ferry. This quickly whisked us back to Circular Quay where we walked back to our room where Deb had a sneaky power nap!
For the evening we went to an area known as Surry Hills. It is supposed to be a bit upmarket and a ‘hip and happening’ area of town. As we felt this described us we went in search of a nice meal. In order to get there we had to walk via some less desirable areas and all side streets seem to be poorly lit here in Oz. Guess you get used to it if living over here but it is very noticeable to an outsider! We found a small Italian restaurant which seemed to be offering good food at a reasonable price relative to the rest of the area! We shared figs wrapped in Parma ham with a Gorgonzola sauce to begin with. For Deb’s main she had Spaghetti Marinara. Scott’s main was Prawn Gnocchi. Both meals were excellent and a coffee finished a lovely relaxing meal from recent hectic sightseeing! We returned back to our apartment via a quick taxi journey to prepare our bags for another early start as we needed to catch a train out to Katoomba and see the Blue Mountains national Park just west of Sydney!
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