Monday: Manly Beach and the Royal Botanic Gardens

While it wasn’t raining, we decided to follow the original Itinerary for Monday, which called for a ferry ride over to Manly. And then, if the weather accommodated us, a walk around the beaches and bush (i.e. undeveloped land) out on the headland looking over the Tasman Sea.  

The ferry to Manly follows the same route as the Zoo ferry, only without turning into the zoo wharf.

It went further, to the very edge of the harbor, looking out into the unprotected ocean. As we passed the ocean, an announcement came on, that because of “unusually high surf” it would be a little choppy, and they recommended we come inside, or we might get wet.

Jonathan grinned and braced himself outside. We were on the second level of the deck. The waves did get bigger, and the spray reached us up on level two. He laughed with happiness.

Manly got its name from Captain Arthur Phillip, who, when sailing his ship full of convicts into Sydney harbor in 1788, saw natives fishing there, and noted that they looked very “manly”. So there you go. Place names.

Soon after arrival, we walked to the beach and ate a snack. And then, since the weather looked reasonable, we decided to start our walk out over the headland.

The walk went well for a while. And then continued to go well.

We walked up into the Sydney Harbour National Park. And soon, we were up in the bush, surprisingly far from any civilization so close to a major city.

And then, of course, Jonathan was tired and hungry. We consulted the map. It looked like we had come exactly half way. No food back that way. We would have to keep going.

By the time we reached the tiny secluded beach, we were all hungry, but not too hungry to enjoy putting our feet in the water, and lying on the sand.

 I had been hoping for a small fish and chips shop. No luck. Too isolated.

About a half hour later, we hiked up away from the beach and found that we weren’t as isolated as we had thought. A few hundred meters from the stone steps going down to the beach there was a public park, and on the other side of the park, residences. We cut through the park, onto a residential road. The path dipped down to another beach, this one with a harbor. Hungry, I took a quick poll. 

“No one wants to go down there and back up, right? Right. Good then. This way.” And I led the group along the road. However, about half way past the beach and harbor, I smelled the smell of a deep fryer. Jonathan turned to me. “Smells like that chips shop you were hoping for.”

Indeed.

I turned and led the group back down toward the small beach. There, in a little shack, was a small restaurant looking out over the water and the harbor.

“Eat here?” asked Tim. “Why not?” I replied. So we stayed.

And in fact, the food there was the best we had in all Sydney. The fish and chips were fresh cooked, with delicious salad. Jonathan got a slab of home baked pear raspberry bread. Tim shared all his salad with me. And we watched the boats go by in the harbor.

Perfect lunch.

By about 2pm, we were back to the Manly Wharf and back on the ferry. By about 3pm we were back at Circular Quay. Now what? The sky was definitely lighter. We decided it was finally time to walk up around the Famous Sydney Opera House, and back behind to the Royal Botanic Gardens. 

We didn’t have to walk all the way to the far end of the Royal Botanic Gardens, but we walked that far anyway.  We didn’t see any bats, but we did see several birds. Someone was feeding the birds, like you and I feed ducks. Only wild parrots and cockatoos and ibises.

The gardens were peaceful. 

And the views were lovely.

(Are you getting tired of that bridge yet?  Because I am, and we still have one more day in Sydney after this one.)

At the very tip of the Royal Botanic Gardens:  Mrs. MacQuarie's seat, carved into the stone in the early 1800s.  Mrs. MacQuarie was the wife of the governor at that time.  Her view over the harbor actually isn't that great.  That's because the bridge and opera house weren't built for 150 years after the seat. Had she known, she would have pointed it accordingly. 

We ate dinner at a pizza place, the only place all of us could agree on after a day full of too much walking. After dinner, we made use of our all-day transit pass and took the train over the bridge in the dark. It wasn’t very special. Too dark.  Then we took the train back. Still not special, and still too dark.

When we finally made our way back to the hotel, Dawn announced that we had walked 22,000 steps that day.

Tired.