Manly, New South Wales, Australia

---

On awaking in the hostel in Katoomba we sought advice from the Tourist Office as to what we could do in the mountains today and were advised we had more or less done it all. So after breakfast we caught a train back to Sydney Central and using our day ticket (kindly sold to us in Katoomba) we took the train to Circular Quay where, as expected, we saw Cunard's Queen Victoria Cruise Ship on its maiden cruise.



Using our day ticket we took the ferry for the half our ride to Manly which is a fine seaside suburb of Sydney above North Head. It is 17 kilometres (11 miles) from Sydney's CBD. On arrival at Manly quay we found an excellent fish restaurant where we had a late lunch (probably the best meal we had in Sydney) and ate and drank for an hour and a half. We walked to the beach and then caught the next ferry back to Circular Quay where we caught a direct train to the Airport for our flight to Hobart, Tasmania.

At the airport it took 16 calls to find any accommodation in Hobart and we only secured a room without facilities at a backpackers hostel (we were later to learn that Tasmania were playing Victoria in a cricket shield final). We arrived at Hobart after 9 pm where the temperature was 17 degrees and it was raining. We collected our hire car and made our way to the hostel where, fortunately, we were able to park outside. The hostel was really grim so we went out to see if we could eat. Hobart on a Saturday at 10 pm was DEAD. M asked a local where we could get some wine and he directed us to a Casino who sold us a bottle. The very helpful bouncer also directed us to a takeaway pizza joint which was still open. We finished a good day eating pizza from the cardboard box and drinking wine from plastic beaker (purchased in Katoomba at M's insistence - thank goodness) in our grim room.

---