Finally, our precious one-week-holiday has come. The city area is crowded with people due to the midyear stocktake sale! My holidays have been very relaxing: quite a bit of shopping and yummy food, comic-reading and exercising!
Sky blue: this has always been my favorite color. Blueness was everywhere as I looked onto the endless horizon of the ocean. Sweetness penetrated my nostrils, and the coldness stung my skin and bones. I have lived in the city too long, so I really appreciated the fresh air.
Sprinting and puffing in the bone-chilling weather, I headed towards the Town Hall steps. On Friday, a group of us, including Fooi, Justine, Nancy and I decided to go on a walk from The Spit to Manly Beach along the Manly Scenic Walkway. We met up on the Town Hall steps at 9.15am, and as one can see, I was late, despite living right across the Town Hall steps. Everyone was in Jeans and sneakers. Nancy carried a book she borrowed from the library called “Walking in Sydney” which describes various walking tracks in Sydney, including the Manly Scenic Walkway…. the book was 20-years-old!
Manly Scenic Walkway
9.5 km, 4 hours, medium difficulty
Going past areas of bushland and exclusive waterfront houses, this walk is the best way to get a complete 'harbour experience'! It hugs the harbour shoreline, taking in beaches, Aboriginal sites, community parks, forests, scrublands and even pockets of subtropical rainforest. Make sure you're prepared for all types of weather - take protective clothing and plenty of water with you.You can start at various points, but to do the full walk you'll need to start at The Spit (which can be accessed by a range of buses from Sydney (Wynyard)), and finish at Manly - or vice versa. From Spit Bridge, follow the shoreline around Fisher Bay (where you can see an Aboriginal midden) and Sandy Bay, before skirting Clontarf Beach. From Clontarf Point, you leave the large beaches behind, following the rocky shoreline and then entering a stand of Sydney red gums. You can take a detour to the right, visiting historic Grotto Point Lighthouse, before continuing along to Crater Cove lookout (opposite Tania Park). Admire the sweeping views of the harbour from here, then carry on over Dobroyd Head, which is in Sydney Harbour National Park. The track passes Reef Beach and Forty Baskets Beach before returning to residential areas, in the suburbs around Manly. From Manly, you can either catch the bus back to Spit Bridge (if you left your car there), or go home via the Manly ferry or jet cat to Circular Quay. For more information on the walk, contact the park information centre.
Plant communities on this walk: Heathlands, Woodlands, Eucalypt forests
Other features: Lookouts, Swimming, Aboriginal/historic sites
We headed towards Wynard to catch the bus. We were not sure of what buses to catch initially (or even where to catch the bus) but eventually we figured it out. On the bus trip, Nancy started telling various tales, including ones about her trip to India, and two poo stories: 1) Where a foreigner left a neat pile of poo nicely folded up in a towel on the hotel bed where her cousin works in China. 2) Where her friend went overseas and was sick with diarrhea and was found to have Giardia when she came back to Sydney and the doctors wanted a photo of her poo coz “we hardly ever see Giardia in Australia”.
“Shoooo!” A car drove past us, missing us only by a few inches.
“Shoo Shoo Shoo!” Many more cars drove past us.
How did we end up walking along a highway? We were not sure where to get off, and despite getting off just across the street from the scenic walkway, the cars were too fast for us to cross. Eventually we managed to cross the road.
Out onto the ocean we looked. We began our expedition at 10.30. The Manly Scenic Walkway is 10 km long and we expected the walk to take approximately 4 hours. We walked along bush-walk like tracts as well as on the beaches, and stopped at various places to look onto the vast clear ocean and enjoy the scenery. Interestingly, there were people “mowing” the sand, perhaps to make it easier to walk on.
“Thomp!” Nancy was already on the ground missing the edge of the cliff by only a few cms before I could have any emotional reactions.
How did we end up in this situation? The walkway was divided into several tracts. It was along the Castle Rock Tract where we had some adventures, walking along “dodgy” tracts.
What triggered this? Upon arriving at the Castle Rock Tract, the road divided into two, one of which points to the Lighthouse (which is a 1km long diversion from the Manly Scenic Walkway). Initially there were disputes as to whether we should walk this extra little tract or not, and eventually we decided to walk it. This walkway was not particularly spectacular and the lighthouse was tiny and locked. As we were heading back to the main tract, Nancy was looking for a rock with a kangaroo carving as this is the landmark of a special little tract which also leads back to the main pathway – that way we don’t have to walk the exactly same route back. We were a bit skeptical about the accuracy of the 20-year-old book. Along the way, we saw one or two dodgy little diversions. Eventually we went on a dodgy diversion which might be the one described on the book.
“It will be tough if we had to walk back from this tract.” The road was extremely steep – we were climbing/jumping down rocks rather than walking.
Eventually, we approached a cliff with many rocks. The scenery from the cliff was spectacular. Over the cliff was the great blue ocean with harsh frothy waves splashing. The water looked shallow but rocky. One would surely plunge to his/her own death (or at least be severely injured) if one fell over this cliff. We decided to have our lunch there. Nancy went for a quick stroll further along this dodgy tract while we started eating our lunch. I took a quick video of the scenery (as well as Fooi and Justine eating their lunches). I didn’t bring my lunch and Justine offered me a croissant. Nancy came back and told us the tract looked even more dodgy further along, and we should walk back along the tract we came from. We finished our lunch and Nancy suddenly jumped off the rock we were sitting – and slipped when she was landing! She landed on her butt, only a few cms away from the edge of the cliff! Both Fooi and Justine were very shocked while I didn’t even have time to develop a reaction.
“My big butt saved my life!” Nancy is definitely not fat but always complained about how much fat she has on her belly and butt.
Indeed, if she landed in the “wrong” way, she might have fell off the cliff!
We “rock-climbed” our way back to the lighthouse tract and then back onto the main tract. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a difficult at all. The rest of the walkway was very easy. We passed by some residential areas as a part of our tract – this seemed dodgy but really was part of the tract. As we were walking towards Forty Baskets Beach, there were quite a few little trees, and as I looked through the trees, I saw glistening water – it was a very beautiful view. We walked on, and something captured our attention: two swings! The joys of childhood returned and we started swinging in them – towards the sea and back, so on and so forth – very refreshing. After some more walking, we finally reached Manly Cove. We sat down on a bench while Nancy went to use the elegant toilet they have there.
“My son was dragged away by the big wave!” a harsh husky voice spoke.
The voice belonged to a rather filthy looking mad “woman”. We were not sure whether the “woman” really was a woman because “her” voice was so husky. The “woman” continued to babble some non-sense to a child. The mother of the child got really scared and hurried her child away.
Inside Max Brenner we awaited for a dish of rich melted chocolate surrounded by several nice pink strawberries. This is called the Fundu! The aroma of the rich chocolate made our mouths water, and we dipped the bright red strawberry into this luxurious warm brown semi-fluid which was never sickening even to the end.
“Aww Aww!!”
The seagulls followed us back on the ferry back to the city. The wind was rather heavy and these seagulls seemed stationary, as they were moving with the ferry. Some even got blown backwards. Some people were squawking at the seagulls. I took a video of several seagulls, one of which had no feet! The Harbour Bridge soon came into view and we were back into my territory!
What did we do after this? Of course, we went shopping in the city, as the stocktake sale is still raging on! I bought many many clothes – spent $90. All the tops I bought were just under $10, while the two Jeans west jeans I bought were $19 each! We went home at 9pm – a long day of walking indeed!
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