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Daily Archives: March 10, 2025

Back to the 80’s and 90’s

Posted on March 10, 2025 by julieallen36

Back in the 1980s I’d read a book which had always stuck in my mind. I’d forgotten what it was called but I remembered that it involved a ferry trip across Sydney Harbour to Manly. So on my list of things to do in Sydney, I had the famous ferry trip. What struck me about the book at the time was that, whilst I was commuting to London from Reigate on a smoky, dirty train every day, people across the world could catch a ferry to their office.

I’ve discovered that the book was indeed called ‘Last Ferry to Manly’ written by Jill Neville in 1984 and is about a woman leaving her life in London behind and going back to her roots in Sydney.

So even though the weather wasn’t great today , rather overcast with sun forecast for later, we decided to make the trip.

This involves catching the dear old ferry to Manly down at Circular Quay, just at the end of our road. With a bit of waffly guidance from the helpful volunteer. We sorted me an Opal card from the ever present Ezymart and then we were both able to tap and go. The ferry was quite large and at 9-30am had hardly anyone on it . We easily got a seat outside upfront so that we could enjoy the views of the harbour, bridge and Opera House.

But as we got further out into the harbour, it got distinctly breezy and we weren’t really dressed for this. So , we gave up and went inside, just before an announcement came over the tannoy that said they recommended everyone to come inside as it was going to be choppier than normal and you might get rather wet. The two who chose to stay outside did indeed get wet! 😱

We started to get really tossed about as we approached the mouth of the harbour and it was really unpleasant and a tiny bit scary even if everyone was pretending it was funny.

However, it didn’t last long and as we turned towards Manly things calmed down. Manly Wharf is very picturesque with a backdrop of Norfolk Pine trees making the water deep emerald green. Unfortunately, it was still rather cloudy. We visited the friendly Tourist Information Centre and then got sidetracked doing some shopping down the pedestrian ‘Corso’. We needed ‘Rashee’ vests for the next stages of our trip and we were successful in the numerous surf shops of Manly.

The place is busy but has a relaxed laid back surfer vibe and we walked along one end of the huge long sandy main beach of Manly. The beach walk has a mix of floppy blond-haired surfer kids, dazed tourists and the genteel retirees of Sydney strolling along. I even found an Art Group out for a spot of En Plein Air painting but disappointingly they weren’t very chatty and seemed to think I was a nutter not to be engaged with.

We had a coffee and snack at a little takeaway place next to the Surf and Rescue Club and watched the world go by before continuing our planned walk round to Shelly Beach. This had been recommended by Kirie off the train and is an easy 20 mins walk along a paved walkway. Today, however, it was very busy as the ‘Nippers’ (9 year olds) were in town for their swimming and life saving competitions. It was a very colourful scene but unfortunately it started to rain and we had absolutely no protection with us! So we tried our best to shelter under the rocks and palm trees with everyone else. By the time the rain stopped , we’d run out of time and after collecting our freebie plastic (why?) Manly glasses form the Tourist Info folk, we headed back and caught the return ferry to Sydney.

After a quick relax and change we were off out again. This time it was back to the 90s. I’d arranged ages ago to meet up with an old Lloyds Bank colleague from my days working as branch manager in Islington. Andy worked with me and back in 1997 when he was 22, I’d encouraged him to go off travelling when he wasn’t sure whether to stick with a career with Lloyds or not! Off he went ….to Thailand , India and then Australia. It was meant to be a round the world trip but in Australia he met Emma and never looked back. Nor did he ever complete the round the world trip! I hadn’t been in touch with Andy since way back then but found him via LinkedIn! So tonight, we met up at the iconic Opera Bar on the quayside next to the Opera House in the sunshine. I met Emma, and Andy met Jane, for the first time. It was great to catch up (well, at least some of the last 30 years!). Emma was absolutely lovely and it turned out that the Minstrels we’d carried all the way over from the UK for Andy, were in fact for Emma, who now thought we were lovely too🤗. We heard all about life in Sydney, they live in Kingsford just south of Bondi Beach and have 3 boys aged 22, 18 and 16. But they still enjoyed their exotic travels and I think it’s fair to say that Andy doesn’t regret leaving Lloyds! He’s worked for several of the big Aussie banks but now works to Woolworth’s specialising in Payments.

From the Opera Bar we made our way over to Barangaroo and upto CIRQ rooftop bar- 26 floors up in the Crown Building currently the tallest in Sydney at 271 and 75 floors. The views from the open air here were spectacular if a little breezy and we enjoyed a selection of tasty ‘tapas’ like dishes with our Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon which apparently cost £75. Hm bit of a mistake there on my part when the guy said the cheaper one wasn’t available. Giddy with the excitement of the day is my excuse. I never was very good on the Foreign Exchange counter.

At about 9pm we got a taxi back to our hotel and said our farewells to Andy and Emma as they ran off to catch their train home. What a lovely day it had been.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Australia, Manly, Sydney | Leave a comment

32,000 steps around Sydney

Posted on March 10, 2025 by julieallen36

The next day we woke up at 8am after a luxurious nights sleep in our hotel. We’re staying in the Tankstream Hotel on Pitt Street which is right in the CBD with fantastic access to all the main things we wanted to do. Well done Jane👏

We got ready for the day and headed out onto the wet streets. It had been raining but the forecast looked more promising. We picked up a map from reception and tried to get our bearings. We were heading for the Botanical Gardens with the plan to walk round there and then carry on to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.

Unfortunately, the receptionist told us a fib about there only being one access point to the gardens so we did rather more walking than I’d planned. The Botanical Gardens are pretty large and the sign posts aren’t great so we ended up actually leaving the park in search of a coffee. We tried to find the site of the gorgeous picture in our guide book which had called us here in the first place but the lady in Info said those flowers weren’t out just now and in fact , they’d moved that lovely tree because it was falling down and she couldn’t remember where they’d put it!

Anyway….there were lots of beautiful trees, ferns, roses and unusual plants to look at and some interesting birds too. We saw colourful laurikeets and white ibis are ten a penny round here, basically like pigeons scavenging in the litter bins!

Next we got a better map of the gardens and headed to Mrs Macquarie’s point and chair. Governor Lachlan Macquarie was one of the v early Governors of the colony of New South Wales and basically a fairly decent bloke trying to keep everyone happy (Government back home, military, convicts and Indigenous locals). Later on he lost favour as a group of colonists reported him as being too liberal with the convicts and too generous to the locals. The sandstone chair was carved by convicts for his wife Elizabeth , who liked to gaze out to the bay from this point.

We liked staring at the view here today too, although I suspect a little different today with both the Bridge and the Opera House on fine display. There were lots of other tourists here too including a large group of Korean’s who rushed about madly trying to get their pics. One of them was a little too ambitious and slid off the rock he jumped onto and into the sea, up to his waist in sea water.

Meanwhile, I introduced the Korean’s to sea glass hunting!

We wandered round to the carved sandstone wave rock and then made our way up to a food van where we got a lemonade and sat under the shade of a huge fig tree. Here we got chatting to a nice lady from Brisbane. She’d escaped the incoming Cyclone Alfred to watch her son debut for the state Rugby team. We’ve met several folk from Brisbane now, all starting to worry about what this huge storm would bring. Folk back home have also asked if we’re going to be ok as our next stop is Hamilton Island in Queensland. However, it’s been described as being like us being in W Ireland and the storm happening in Portugal so I think we will be ok. 👍

The cold drink revised us and so we continued our walk all along the waterfront where I did a sketch of the Opera House and Jane read her book. We then walked around to the Rocks where Jane found us The Rocks Cafe to eat at. It was lovely having a meal outside. It was only 4-30pm but the place was busy and the food and service excellent. We even took a slice of Passionfruit Cheesecake and Pecan pie home for pudding later. Yum.

Back at the hotel we relaxed in the air con and I got creative with collage on my sketch of the Opera House and caught up with this blog. Jane meanwhile fell asleep, the 32, 000 steps had nearly broken her.