Advertisement
Published: March 31st 2024
Another easy, natural get up this morning! After another good nights sleep. I’m a little bit stiff today n the legs, but I think that it will loosen up as soon as I start walking around.
We got straight on with booking me into a Vicious Cycle Class!! I know… OMG… what am I thinking? I know I’m just having a go… no judgement.. ha ha. I’m happy to see Bernard doing what he loves. It’s a big part of his life, and this is a good way to do that! We’ll see, watch this space!
We had brekky. Bernard made us scrambled eggs in toast, by request. I do love my eggs! These were washed down with a black/purple, very seedy, berry and protein packed smoothie! It certainly tasted a lot better than it looked. My food, and exercise are in point this holiday!
Today we have planned to go to Palm Beach. It is situated in the northernmost of Sydney’s Northern Beaches. It is the real life home of, the television series, Summer Bay
Overlooking Palm Beach is the Barrenjoey Lighthouse which, after a fairly tiresome uphill walk, provides beautiful views of the beach and
Pittwater. Then on to Manly which is most notable for its popular beaches. The beach here is a long stretch of sand on the ocean side, that runs from Queenscliff through North Steyne to South Steyne, and is followed by rock pools and sandy beaches called Fairy Bower and Shelly Beach.
Our day bags are packed, we are ready to set off on today’s journey. As always, we start at Petersham train station, to continue on to the bus from Wynyard to Palm Beach. As we arrived at the bus stop, we decided to get a coffee to go for the bus ride. Bernard walked to get it, then a bus arrived, I had a bit of a sweat on, thinking it was our bus. I had a quick, but funny text conversation with Bernard… he has the patience of a gnat… in the funniest way… he reminded me of Ella at that point! She is exactly the same . Ha ha.
He returned, the coffee is good, and I get to use my koala stubble cover! The bus to Palm Beach arrived. We’re off! Ohh… highlight we passed a huge lobster on our bus ride on Pittwater
Road. It’s not the well known, ‘Larry the Lobster’. But it’s certainly big enough! It still classes as another, ‘huge’ item in Australia in my book!
We arrived at Summer Bay, the filming set of Home and Away. It triggered memories from the 80’s when I would sit feeding Beth, as a baby, watching it on TV.
We headed on for the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park, where we will do the walk up to lighthouse. It was as a short, but very steep climb up to the top. I had Angelika in one ear, pacing me, and Bernard in the other, but that was great, as it helped me to take my time to make it to the top without killing myself! I’m definitely getting better at this. Although I was like Billy Beetroot face when I arrived at the top!
Barrenjoey Lighthouse was built in 1881 from sandstone quarried on site. I did say that these lighthouses are much shorter than the ones that I’ve seen in the UK, then Bernard pointed out that they are all situated on the top of a huge hill! Whereas, ours are on flat land! Ha ha
We found
a bit of grass to spread out our towels, eat our nut bars, and apples whilst we enjoy the beautiful scenery. Barrenjoey Headland is a relatively small peninsula, primed for spectacular views. From the top you can see the vast stretch of Pacific Ocean to the east, Hawkesbury River to the north and the gorgeous still waters of Pittwater and Broken Bay to the west.
The decline down, the alternative route, Smuggler’s Route. It was much shorter, but so much steeper. It was slippery, sandy steps down, instead of the long gradual inclining slope that we originally climbed up.
When we reached the calm, bayside of the beach, we stopped to enjoy a dip in the bay, and a rest. This rest was needed due to my wobbly thighs!
We had about half an hour, before walking the length of the bay to Ailsa’s Stewart’s Cafe for a drink stop. It had to be a beer stop as they had stopped serving food, and coffee! It’s actually called Barrenjoey Boatshed, but anyone who watches Home and Away, it is Ailsa’s Cafe!
We left the cafe area to catch the bus for the second part of today’s
journey. We are now going to Manly. The bus ride was a little long, but easy. I mean after all, we’re just sitting there, with not a care in the world! Then I did notice, we were actually sat in the pensioners seats! There were none around, so we stayed there!
When we arrived, we walked up the main street to check out the beach. It is, yet another, beautiful beach! It’s similar in size to Bondi Beach, but that’s another one visited. We stayed for a while on the front, then went to a restaurant for a simple pup type dinner… fish and chips it is! It was huge, and really nice. I didn’t manage to eat all of mine because there is a method in my madness. After the dinner we are going to a very highly recommended, gelato!
We arrived at Anita’s Gelato to find a queue, right out into the street, but it’s a lot smaller than it was earlier today when we passed by!
We joined the queue, which actually went down really quickly. I got a double waffle cone with a scoop of peanut butter and chocolate, and a scoop of
salted caramel. It was humongous!!! Bernard had a dish thingy with a scoop of Belgian chocolate a scoop of almond, caramel and hazelnuts. We couldn’t stop laughing when we saw the sheer size of them. I honestly struggled to get my mouth round it. What made it harder, and funnier, was that I had to use my lips because the coldness set my teeth off! I said to Bernard, ‘This is not an ice cream, it’s an experience! I can’t explain how big, difficult, and funny it was, trying to eat it. Needless to say, we both completed the task! It was amazing, even my tee shirt and shorts enjoyed it! We walked away…. Stuffed!
We then made our way to the ferry crossing. The ferry takes us from Manly to Circular Quay. We had planned to time the crossing with the sunset. Well, we have spent so long, simple enjoying ourselves, we missed it! So we got the fast ferry back, in the pitch black of night, but it was well worth it! As we arrive into Sydney Harbour, the Opera House is on my left, what a view it is, all lit up in the dark.
We got off the ferry to get the train to Petersham, Bernard decided we could make it up a double escalator, with wobbly legs, and… full of fish and chips, and double bloody ice cream to catch the train that is about to leave!!! I know he is family, but really???? He started running up, I followed, we were both laughing on the outside, but crying inside!!! We made it!
The train journey was just laughing from getting on, to getting off! That was partly due to the way we are feeling in our very tired legs, but unfortunately we had the funniest looking lady right opposite us, by then we were both in giggling mode, then she just added to it, and then put her dog in the mix!!!! We couldn’t even look at each other, then every time Bernard and I caught a glance of each other, it just got worse! We have laughed so much today! It’s now 9:15…. And we are home!
I had a quick call with Angelika for a catch up, she’s out with Timo and Charles. I did get an invite to join them, but I’m done in for today, but
it was great to catch up!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.053s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 19; dbt: 0.031s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Julie w
non-member comment
Day 40
Oh I’ve never stopped laughing at this blog you with ya ice cream and your wobbly legs,you both look so happy just having fun together with your nephew Bernard, beautiful photos as always Les 😘