March 3 - The day just keeps on going

Jay came up with the idea to go to Manly in the afternoon, hang out, have dinner and head back after dark to see the city lights from the water. So we headed out to Manly via ferry after taking the city rail (subway) down to the Quay.

Manly is a lovely upscale beach town north of Sydney and actually is bordered by the harbour on one side and the ocean on the other. It's definitely the place to be on a Saturday night (even if there are 300,000 people reveling in the Gay/Les parade in central Sydney). After walking through the main street area of Manly we cam on to the ocean side of the city which is called Manly Beach. It's a white sand beach that stretches about two miles and was filled with the usual summer beach crowd of swimmers, surfers, volleyball players, and sun worshipers. We didn't get our toes wet since we both tend to whine if we get sand in between our toes. Instead we chose to hike away from the beach and explore a residential area to see how the locals live. Cute houses and condos and apts. on tree-lined streets. Not unlike a hilly SF neighborhood. At the end of one street we found a path that led to a small green park on a bluff overlooking Manly cove. We had the only bench to ourselves and basked in the late afternoon sun as we watched tall-masted sailboats, motor boats, and a kayaker until the sun went down. Tranquility at it's best.

Found our way back to Manly and had a nice pizza dinner before catching the 9 pm ferry. Sydney is not in a clear line of sight from Manly so we had to progress a bit on the ferry and around an outcropping before we could take in the harbour lights. As we made the turn into the harbour proper, about two miles from the Opera House and bridge we had a breathtaking view of Sydney aglow. We snapped off many pics, but they cannot do justice to the night time approach by ferry. Can't imagine anyone not enjoying that experience. Aw darn, we could have been at the Gay/Les parade!