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Day 30 - The weather was spot on this morning, bright blue sky and lovely and warm so we decided to hop on a bus and head into Manly for a casual stroll around, a bit of a sit by the beach and to investigate some 2nd hand bikes we’d seen! Sod getting up at the crack of dawn to go to the Blue Mountains, we’re going to do that tomorrow instead so it’s an early night tonight!
Getting the bus to Manly is really convenient and it’s saving us having to bother driving or finding places to park. There’s a walk which you can do to take you up to Manly Cove, it actually goes on for 9km but we only did the 2km flat / mild slopes bit of it!! We joined the walkers, dog walkers, tourists, joggers and fishermen all using the trail! The views are stunning and the houses that line the way must cost a pretty penny, some have outside showers for convenience when returning from the beach which is just at their back gates, others have swimming pools which seem a bit over the top considering the expense of running them versus the freeness of
walking 10 yards and falling in the sea!! But that’s choice for you! Manly Cove is full of beautiful boats, the kind you dream of owning one day if you have any inclination to sail at all! There were quite a few out and about sharing the waterways with the ferry’s and the kayakers. Now that’s the way to head to work, in swim gear, in a kayak in the sun!! One of the nicest things about Manly (there are hundreds!), in my (Sarah’s) opinion is that it caters for all levels of sea-swimming ability. There’s a sheltered but sea water pool cut into the rocks, there’s the beautiful clear waters of the inlet and then there’s the ocean for the surfers and the lunatics especially at this time of year because although the sun is shining the water is not very warm! The sheltered pool had some visitors to it this morning, a lady doing her morning workout and then a girl snorkelling! Fair shout, that’s the way to do it!
We wandered round to the ocean side of Manly and it was really busy, we’ve seen it busier when we’ve been here before but considering this is Autumn
and the beach is ‘closed’ for swimming, it was pretty full! The surfers were back and really giving it some although the waves weren’t as big as yesterday, there was a guy sat just up from us on the sea wall singing and strumming on his guitar and then there’s just general life going on around you - it’s really great. And of course there was the chips that Dar’s been craving for, you can’t beat that, fish and chips on the beach.
We didn’t want to be out all day again today as we want an early night for our big trek to the mountains tomorrow so we caught the bus back towards Narabeen but hopped off at the Bike Hub to look at some 2nd hand ones they’ve got outside. We had a bit of a test ride and we might go back to see if we can do a deal with them at all but as it was the ride back to Narabeen would have been up a big hill (huge) and Dar was afraid I would moan about the saddle and the gears and just moan in general!!! I don’t know what he means at all!!
We needed to catch the 155 bus back to the campsite and missed it by one minute so had to wait for a while before the next one came! It gets quite amusing because you have to signal the drivers to stop so flagging down the wrong bus becomes a bit of a novelty that doesn’t seem to wear off on us!!
And so we came back to the camp, to the BBQ and to the blog. We’ve just been looking at Mum and Dad Kettle’s pics of their holiday home (our house!) and their fun with the shower!!
Big shout out to Ed who got through to the quarter-finals at this weekend’s Main Event in Pro-ET! Nice one Ed, don’t get too used to the hot-seat at that one will you!!!
Anyway, we’re off up another mountain! Speak to you all tomorrow.
Lots of love
Dar and Sar
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terri
non-member comment
What are you like with buses?
I see you are still not having much luck with buses then! At least the wait is warmer over there!