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Published: February 9th 2014
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Thursday 30th January, 2014. - Collaroy, NSW, Australia
After breakfast we packed, checked our shoes for beasties, said our goodbyes to Chris and exchanged email and phone numbers so we can keep in touch in order to meet up in Melbourne. Then we walked down to Halls Wharf to wait for the 11.45 ferry. The tide was in and the beach looked lovely. Shame we weren't staying as the water looked very inviting. D walked to the end of the wharf and placed the red flag in the flag holder. This is the singal to the Ferry driver that he needs to come and pick people up. Church Point Ferry provides ferry services from Church Point, situated on Pittwater in the northern suburbs of Sydney. The ferry prvides an hourly service to Scotland Island, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, (Halls Wharf), Lovett Bay and Elvina Bay but will only stop if the flag is out. The ferry arrived pretty much on time and D furled the flag and put it away. Pittwater looked absolutely stunning today.
The next stop was Lovett Bay, then Elvina Bay and Bells Wharf on Scotland Island, where the driver collected our tickets. Then we
made our way back to Church Point. We walked to the bus stop and waited 20 minutes for a bus to Collaroy which was our destination for tonight. Collaroy is a suburb in northern Sydney, 22 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Warringah Council. It is part of the Northern Beaches region. This area was originally part of Narrabeen but was renamed after the collier S.S. Collaroy ran aground on the beach in 1881 during a storm. Most of Collaroy’s development has occurred since the mid twentieth century. Collaroy’s surf beach joins Narrabeen Beach at Wetherill Street making one continuous 3.4 km surf beach. Four Surf Lifesaving Clubs provide swimming supervision/surf rescue services (North Narrabeen SLC, Narrabeen SLC, South Narrabeen SLC, and Collaroy SLC). Collaroy/Narrabeen is
frequented by diverse bird and aquatic animal life including Sea Eagles, Pelicans, Terns, Ducks, Yellow-crested Cockatoo. Dolphins and whales can be seen during migrating season - it was not the season though, so we were unlikely to see any.
We found the YH easily. It was a really flash one with a pool. We had been upgraded to an en-suite which was a bonus.
We went out and found a bottle shop, purchased some wine and some stuff for breakfast. We are going to treat ourselves to a takeaway tonight. We stopped and got a couple of pies for lunch and returned to the YH. It was at this point that we realised that the Collaroy YH runs a strange system, that we hadn't encountered anywhere else. All the crockery, cutlery etc is not stored in the kitchen. It is stored in hampers in the rooms and dorms. When you have used something you have to wash and dry it and return it to your room. We wondered why it looked so tidy - the city hostels are usually a right mess.
After we had washed up and put our stuff away we changed into our beach gear. We walked down to the main Collaroy beach. It was breezy and the flags were out. The yellow and red flags are used
to designate the safe swimming zones. You are supposed to swim in the sea in between these two flags as the life savers have assessed that the area is less prone to rips and also is being constantly watched in case anyone
runs into difficulty. There were also some black and white flags (like the ones used in F1) , outside of the yellow and red ones. There was nobody in the water either. We strolled along and came to the life savers hut. M asked about the black and white flags and was told that the surfers had to stay on the outide of these flags so they didn't clout anyone in the water. M asked if there was nobody swimming because of sharks. The life guard said that it was more likely because there was a lot of seaweed today - but there are sharks he added! That decided it for M. There was a concrete swimming pool at the end of the beach which was filled with seawater when the tide came in and replinished on each tide. No sharks in there! So we found a space to sit and went for a swim.
Next to the swimming pool was a fantastic example of a Wave Cut Platform (WCP) with loads of rock pools. This is the flat area often found at the base of a sea cliff or along the shoreline of a bay, or sea that
was created by the erosion of waves. Wave-cut platforms are often most obvious at low tide when they become visible as huge areas of flat rock. Sometimes the landward side of the platform is covered by sand - as is the case here at Collaroy, forming the beach, and then the platform can only be identified at low tides or when storms move the sand. It was low tide here and the WCP was very visible. We took it in turns to walk on it and among the rock pools in an attempt to dry ourselves in the sun.
We decided to take a walk around the bay in order to dry off completely. We passed a place with a few people swimming - no seaweed and rocks protected the beach from sharks. We continued on until we came to a boat launching ramp where there were 3 boats in the process of being launched. These were rowing boats with teams of blokes to row them. Most of the towns along the coast here have a team and they race regularly. Today they were just practising. It was amazing how far out they got in a very short space
of time. At the end of the boat launching ramp there was a group
of very large pelicans. They were beautiful. A sign informed us that we were in the Long Reef Aquatic Park. We took some pictures and decided to return on the cliff top path.
There were loads of lorries parked behind the beach and when we investigated we were informed that the second series of something or other was being filmed in a big house behind the beach. We walked along until we came to an area overlooking the WCP which was labelled 'The Basin'. As we stood admiring the view the Pelicans came swooping past. For big birds they really look incredibly eligant in the air. We watched for quite some time until a big group of them had landed on the WCP below us.
We returned to the hostel. We treated ourselves to an Indian Takeaway for dinner. Yummy.
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