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Published: August 6th 2007
Beaches, Travel and Tasmania
Manly Beach We started Friday morning by walking to the harbor for yet another ferry ride. Each day we have walked a different street through downtown to get down to the harbor. This has given us a pretty good feel for the business district of the city center.
Kel and I have marveled about a couple of things about the activity in the business district. First off, it appears that no matter what hour you walk through town people are out of their offices. When you walk through most US cities during the week in the mid morning or mid afternoon, activity tends to calm down a bit. People are at their desks working and therefore are not out on the streets. Sydney, on the other hand, is always full of business types moving around, sitting in cafés with a beer, or just generally walking around socializing. Its very different from what I expect of a solidly business area of town.
The other main thing we notice is that everyone is very stylish and attractive. The women are always dressed up in modern style like you’d see in the movies.
Men tend toward suits but always a very modern cut with bright colored shirts and ties. While the town we come from is full of very conservative people, the Sydney-ites are much more flamboyant in their fashions. We constantly were feeling underdressed and out of style. It’s a tough place to be if you are the least bit self conscious because everyone dresses well and most look really good.
We caught the 10am ferry for Manly Beach which is one of the premiere beaches for people in the area to relax, picnic on the weekends and soak up some rays. The thirty minute ferry ride gave us a chance to see some of the residential areas up and down the coast. The architecture in many of these residential areas resembles the predominant architecture of coastal places we’ve visited before like Monte Carlo. Most of the growth in this area occurred since the sixties so the buildings have that 60’s/70’s architectural feel. Kel and I agree that we could completely live in one of these communities. Close to or on the water, a short ferry ride from downtown and temperate weather due to the influence of the water; how could
you go wrong living here?
Manly beach is pretty commercial without feeling cheesy like Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. The beach is beautiful and the boardwalk is backed by small hotels and restaurants that are no more than four stories tall. Since we had yet to eat, our first priority was to get brunch. Kel had little opinion so I chose a place that seemed to be fairly crowded. We’ve found that happy looking crowds usually mean a place is pretty good. Our selection method proved once again to be a good one as the food was amazing. With French Toast for me, Chorizo and Potatoes for Kel and some Banana Bread to split between us, we finished brunch incredibly satisfied.
With lunch behind us, we set out to explore for an hour or two. Since its still incredibly hot in Sydney we could only spend an hour or two outside before we melted. We chose to walk the boardwalk around to one of the protected state park areas that overlooked the beach from some small cliffs. Kel always loves walking uphill so I always do my best to find an uphill path and/or stairs for our short
treks (read this with sarcasm).
The beach was incredibly crowded with the beautiful young people of Sydney. Much like my earlier observations I wonder at times how there can be so many people not at work. What I can tell you is that I understand why people would take a day off to come to Manly. The water is clear, the rocks provide some cool contrasts to the water and the beach is broad with fine sand. It’s really fun to sit and watch the surfers and enjoy the sun from this area. It would be great to be this close to a real beach back home!
After walking around getting sweaty we headed back to Sydney to get a few things done since the next morning we were going to head out of town. We got some corn starch for Kel, checked out more bags for Kel to replace her worn out purse, and got some more books. Then went back to our room to do some resting and travel planning before dinner.
Dinner with New Friends We met Anne and Rudy, the couple we met at the zoo the day before, in the
middle of Hyde Park and headed down to Darling Harbor for dinner. We picked a restaurant after checking out a ton of options and sat down for a long and really enjoyable dinner. Rudy tried the Kangaroo steak which the rest of us stuck to tamer foods.
We spent the next 3 or so hours talking and enjoying each other’s company. It’s a ton of fun to sit down to dinner with new people from back in the states. Since Rudy and Anne hadn’t met us before we had tons of fun stories to share from the last 4 months of travel. We realized as we were having fun recounting our travels that we will never get to do this when we get back because all of you will have read most if not all of our blog entries. How funny that we will come home and you will know everything we’ve done in the past year and we will know next to nothing about your lives. Maybe we should get you guys to do a daily blog so that we can read about your lives?!?!
Anne and Rudy were a ton of fun. Rudy’s a professional firefighter
and Anne sells insurance. We got to know a bunch about them like how they met and about their crazy dogs. Talking to people from back home reminds us of how much fun it can be to talk about normal everyday stuff as well as the wild crazy stuff we do on the road. Moments like this can make me a bit homesick, but it was still tons of fun to get out on the town and make new friends.
Around 9pm we had to call it an evening since we had an early morning flight and had to pack and get ready for the travel. After parting ways Kel and I stopped at an internet café to print our plane tickets and then went back to our room for the evening.
Traveling to Tasmania This morning we got up at quarter to 6am to get to the airport in time for our 8:30am flight. Today’s flight counts as the 20th flight we’ve taken in the past 4 and a half months and we’ve gotten very used to the hurry up and wait routine but sometimes it can get really dull. Today we gog to the
Kel and the Trees
The leaves are starting to change here in Hobartairport, grabbed some Krispy Kreme donuts for a highly nutritious breakfast (yum), and then sat at our gate for a few minutes when we were informed our plane was late. No problem. Then the plane arrived and a dash light was out so we had a few more minutes to wait. No problem. Of course this wouldn’t be as big a deal if there were enough chairs for everyone at the gate, but, of course, there aren’t. We were getting sore bum disease sitting on the floor for the extra 35 minutes for our plane to leave.
Finally we boarded and had an uneventful hour and a half flight that Kel and I both slept through. Hobart, the capital of the state/island of Tasmania, is yet another one of those tiny one baggage carousel kind of airports. We like these because you don’t have to fight crowds, but there are downsides to this as well. We all got off the plane and then proceeded to wait for twenty minutes for our baggage. No problem. By time our bags came, they were almost last because they are so heavy, everyone else had already gotten in line for rental cars; thus,
more hurry up and wait. We jumped in the Hertz line and waited patiently for everyone else to get their cars and finally checked in for ours to find that they had given out all the ones that were ready. It would only be a few minute wait while ours was brought around. No problem. After 15 minutes they gave us the keys and we were off for our hotel. By this point I was very tired of waiting but was still being patient because it does you no good to get upset.
Driving Can Be an Adventure We got our new Hyundai loaded up and we were ready to depart. This is the moment of truth when it comes to driving. You think you’re a good driver, you’ve had a pretty good record with different cars in different situations but this is the ultimate challenge - driving on the other side of the road. I open the right hand door and get in behind the wheel. The stick for the manual transmission is on the left hand side, the turn signals are on the right hand side of the steering wheel, at least the pedals are
the same as usual.
So, with a little trepidation, we set out for downtown Hobart for our hotel. I managed to get the car moving with little problem and for the most part was able to shift without problems. The strange issue was that I had the tendency to drift to the left in whatever lane I was in. My mind told me I was too far over to the right while I was driving so I had to fight my impulses constantly to keep the car centered in the lane.
Kel was incredibly helpful through all this trouble. I have given her the task or constantly reminding me of where I need to be on the road. When I drift she gently reminds me to get back to center. When I’m turning a corner she reminds me which lane to be in. It could sound annoying to some of you, but to me it’s awesome! Thanks to Kel!
We successfully made it to the hotel and parked the car. Yet again we were in a place of hurry up and wait. We couldn’t check in until 2 and it was 12…so no check in or hotel
room. No problem. Instead of checking in we took a walk into town to check out the Saturday market in the middle of town.
This is the first time since Europe that we’ve had a chance to walk through an open market that has what we would consider gourmet goods. Stalls and stalls of fresh produce, home made jams and honey, and many other native goods made for a great couple of hours of walking around.
The only challenge we were faced with as we walked through this pleasant harbor town was the chill. It has been months since we’ve been in any place that had a temperature below 75 so it was a shock, a wonderful shock, when we stepped off the plane and it was 57 degrees. As I’m sure you know, the southern hemisphere is moving into fall while the northern hemisphere is moving into spring. Even knowing that winter was on its way, we were not really prepared for the fact that the temperature was 20 degrees cooler here than it was in Sydney. I would have loved to check in and put a pair of pants on, but instead we got to walk
Market Pictures
The Hobart Weekend Market around town, eat a cheap lunch of hot dogs, and feel VERY cool.
When we were done walking around town we checked into our hotel and decided to chill out for a while before dinner. We figured that we’d get to see more of Tasmania in the next few days since we have another three here. So, after a rest, we went out for an early dinner right on the pier. Yes, to answer your unasked question, we did both get seafood. It was really good and of course very fresh.
Tomorrow we hope to catch some Tasmanian Devils. Hope you are all well at home. It may be a few days before we write again because our next hotel doesn’t have internet. We will write again as soon as we can.
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JennyinJamaica
non-member comment
Hee hee! I go back and forth between the U.S. and Jamaica a lot, so I'm always have to remind myself of which side of the road I'm supposed to be on.... I can't tell you how often I've turned on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal. hehhehee. Sydney sounded fabulous - really cosmopolitan and wonderful!