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Published: February 26th 2017
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Blue water, blue sky , impressive city backdrop and those two iconic landmarks "
Travel is best measured in friends, rather than miles"- Tim Cahill New Zealand remained our main destination but we had planned to spend a week in Sydney connecting and catching up with family. Sue's entire family live in Sydney so some quality time was spent with brother Rory and his wife Brenda Lynsky and their family comprising of the Smith's and Kelly's and their four beautiful daughters. Rory had spent some time planning for our time with them and we were able to undertake a daily smorgasbord of travel and sightseeing delights. And believe me Sydney is a city to delight anyone!
A quick scan on the Internet of the World's most liveable cities throws up some surprises. Vienna, Hong Kong, Istanbul, New York, London....in that order # 1 to # 5. Well,I have been priviliged to visit all of these cities and quite frankly they do not feature in my top three. The same website that ranks the above cities has Cape Town at # 6 and Sydney at # 18....out of 50. Granted this would be one of those really subjective rating things but I would probably simplify it down to the "Wow factor". So for
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The early bird (or worm?) swimmers about to set off for the 1.5km swim me the top "wow" cities I rate in my top three are Vancouver, Sydney and Cape Town (in no particular order).
So the lingering question must now be.....why Sydney? I do not have the journalisitc skills to describe the magnificence of Sydney but for those of you fortunate enough to have been there, I am sure I have your posssible support. The North Heads define the entry point to Sydney harbour which is an incredible web of endless deep blue bays stretching in a 360 deg circle and then somehow drawing the viewer by magnetic force to an impressive city backdrop and the two iconic drawcards...the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Shimmering deep blue waters, sailing craft of huge variety, green clad cliffs jutting out and protecting stunning bays and beaches. Breathtaking.
Our base was Manly located on the northern shores and it was difficult to sense that we were actually attached to a city of close to 5 million people. The North shore boasts a spectacular coastline with more beaches than anyone you ask seems to know about. Some odd names like Curl Curl, Narrabeen, Warriewood, Fairy Bower, Dee Why. The good folk of Sydney love
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A common sight...water, sails and green clad headlands their beaches and endless walks are possible along specially laid out walkways hugging the coastline. On these walks I kept wondetring if anyone actually works in this city. Surfers, boot camps, cyclists, joggers were in abundance throughout the day. All very well "regulated" with numerous information boards reminding you what you can and cannot do. Impressively people obey!
A highlight of most days at Manly Beach is the 1.5km ocean swim which attracts a large number of people across the age and gender spectrum. I happened to witness this first hand on a Saturday morning when there are a couple of swim times kicking off at 06h30 in the morning. All the swimmers wear pink swimming caps and interestingly no registered club exists as this would create a labryinth of Council and liability problems. You just picth up, sort of join, get your pink cap, and then swim. No rescue craft but just your fellow swimmers to assist if you start thrashing the water for whatever reason. No age restriction but what caught my eye was the array of swimwear. In particular the "blokes". No shortage of what we affectionately call "speedos". My daughters banned me from wearing mine but after witnessing the Manly swim I will be dusting mine off. The Aussies have some cute names for speedos including dick togs, dick stickers, sluggos, lolly bags, marble bags and dick pointers. Belive me they were all there!
By any measure Sydney is a big, bustling city with it's fair share of traffic jams but what struck me in the week we were there was that we never saw a single fender bender. Got me thinking and googling. The World road fatality average per annum in 2016 per 100,000 inhabitants was 17,4. Australia was 5,4 and wait for it....RSA was 25,1 (higher than the World average and almost 5 times higher than Australia). Whilst on statistics Australia's GDP in 2016 was US$1,256 billion ranking this landlocked island of about 24million people, 12th in the World whilst RSA is ranked 42nd with GDP of US$280 billion (scary thought but we are one below Pakistan!). And some Australian (forget who) reminded me that we have significantly more mineral wealth than Australia will ever have.
A real bonus of the time spent in Sydney was an invitation to play in the Nomads North Golf Day at Stonecutters Ridge Golf Club about an hour north of Sydney. An ex colleague of mine from my Nampak days, Mark Howard-Browne, is the kingpin behind this Nomads club which does some really good charity work. So with borrowed clubs and golf shoes, I set off on this golfing adventure which ended well with my winning the visitor competition and an "electronic" type prize which will ensure that Sue never, ever loses her cellphone again.
A special family dinner celebrating Sue's brothers birthday was held at a superb harbour side restaurant in Manly with good ex Durban friends, Robbie and Jean Stewart. This was a fitting evening to end our one week sojourn in this superb city and to gently remind us of the adventure to follow. New Zealand and all it's treasures beckoned.
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