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Me and Kat on a bridge
Posing towards the end of the walk to Manly beach DAY 2:
Woke up not too bright and early on Saturday, ready for our major expedition of the weekend, the 10km Spit to Manly walk. After the capoeira training the night before, just getting out of bed was a challenge and I wondered how I would fair after a few hours of walking but hey, nothing was gonna stop me!
It was another beautiful day as Kat, Neil and I set out. The first part of the walk took us along the shore, where another lovely beach lay in wait. We all took our shoes/sandals off and enjoyed walking along in the sand and splashing in the water. Water temperature was good for paddling, a bit chilly for swimming. We reached the end of the beach and then headed into a more foresty area, complete with wooden bridges (slightly Indiana Jones) and lots of trees getting in the way of the path. We were now out of the sun and it was pleasantly cool but not cold. I was feeling the effects of the previous night's capoeira, as my legs were complaining severely about what was effectively a gentle walk across pretty unchallenging terrain. Kat and Neil stormed
Me and Neil on the first beach
It was a small but lovely beach and sun made the sea sparkle...it was all very bright and colourful ahead and I felt like a bit of a whimp. Ah, well. I managed to keep up and eventually was rewarded by some magnificent views from the top of the hills opposite Sydney city centre.
After a brief stop for ice cream, we proceeded cheerfully as we had passed the half-way mark. We were really surrounded by plants for a lot of the walk and there were a few I definitely hadn't seen before. Like the one with the strange long orange flower things, which reminded me of corn on the cobb! Also, not so nice, were the huge spiders we came across. Those definitely gave me the creeps. Eventually we emerged from the foresty, rocky terrain out into a park and from then on were pretty much walking along roads or concrete paths through parks. It was stilll very pretty though, green everywhere, nice houses and the sea always not very far away. We started looking forward to food in Manly.
It was strange to think on arrival in Manly, that actually after all that walking along beaches, over foresty hills and cliffs and through parks, that we were still actually in Sydney itself. Just, um, on
View by the sea
This was the view at the start of our walk. Not bad... the other side. At this point I definitely started thinking that Sydney should be higher up on my list of places I would like to live in for a little while. This reflection was only reinforced by the sight of Manly beach itself, where we arrived just as the sun was setting. It was a beautiful big long beach with gentle waves breaking on the shore. There was a convenient pedestrian corridor leading to the beach, full of shops and places to grab some food, which came in very handy. It wasn't the most picturesque, after our lovely walk, but the beach made up for it. Unfortunately we couldn't hanf around as we had to catch the ferry back to Sydney. So we grabbed the aforementioned food and headed down to the harbour for the grand finally to our big day out.
We boarded the ferry and got a nice seat at the front. As we set off the sun was setting for good and the sky was a beautiful pink. The views on the bay and sea were lovely for a few brief moments in the last rays of the setting sun. Unfortunately, once the sun had set,
it actually got quite cold and we changed to indoor seating which was more comfortable and much warmer. Although the views from the inside were not as good, I could still see a lot as the dark settled over the bay and the bright lights of Sydney started sparkling across the sea. As we approached the harbour, we decided to rush out to take photos of the Opera House, of course. As we cruised into the harbour we got a great view of this iconic building, along with some of the skyscrapers of Sydney harbour. Again, it was really nice. A perfect end to a pretty damn fantastic day and there was still more of Sydney to see.
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Nikos
non-member comment
Holiday?
Katerina my dear , are you sure that you are getting payed for this job in the Fidjies , please check it when you are back in the UK and look for unexpected charges ! Have more fun and enjoy everything. Ciao , Nikos