A good time in Manly...

03/03/09

To my delight, I discover that the two places I wanted to go to today are right next to each other. Manly and North Head Reserve. There is even a guided walk in the guidebook I have borrowed form Hazel which takes you around the two of them. It claims to be three hours long. I suspect that, at a mere four miles, it’s physically shorter than that, but I intend to spend a bit longer by mooching in shops, having lunch, enjoying the sun and possibly swimming at a beach which is proclaimed to be, by the guidebook, as, ‘ideal for child swimmers’ – sounds good to me!

I head down to the Quay (again!) past the resident Aborigines playing didgeridoos and local instruments to their backing CDs (a snip at ten dollars!) and head for the boats. The Manly ferry is very big and boasts a toilets and a café – this trip must be longer than the other little commuter splashes across the Harbour. It is $12.80, which I hand over and, grasping my ticket carefully so as not to lose or bend it, it trot happily onto the wharf. The Manly Ferry is in green and cream livery too, but I don’t spot a name on her, which is a pity. The trip over is pretty, and the sea spray combines nicely with the cool breeze of our passing and the bright sun to make sitting outside very pleasant. I have nabbed a seat on the starboard side (I think – left?) and I can see the icons of Sydney disappearing into the distance as the hills of the harbour slide by.

We slow down some way from either Manly or Sydney Wharves and eventually grind to a halt and a belch of black smoke drifts into view from above. Two worried-looking crew members trot past with a big can of grease and a large nozzle (the sort that might be useful for administering an enema to an elephant). They open a small bolted door and disappear briskly into the machine-scented darkness beyond. A few minutes later they emerge, and we are moving again, engine humming smoothly.

We arrive at Manly Wharf, hot in the morning sun, and I admire the glitter on the water and the darkling trees and hills beyond. It is reassuring, in this highly technical age, that rope is still a fundamental part of sea travel.

Manly seems, at first glance, to be bewilderingly huge; I thought it was a little dinky place with a nice seafront. I am glad I have the guided walk to help me or I would be walking about in circles! It is, to my disappointment, also quite full of tourists… The little shopping centre throngs with pale people in silly hats and rugged, nut brown people in funky sunglasses. I peer down at the glittering, golden beach and see that there too are large numbers of visitors, all toasting themselves and swimming in the clear balmy waters. Ah well, I guess I shall just have to put my tourist hat on and throng with the crowds.
Eugh.
Still, Manly town centre is pretty and very sweet, and there is the promise of a Clare-friendly swimming beach, which would be better busier – then if I sink there’ll be more people to notice! ;)
I walk on, following the walk around the shoreline and arrive at a restaurant which is mentioned in the book, The Kiosk. It looks quite nice, but is ridiculously overpriced and nothing tempts me, so I nibble my trail bar and head onto the beach.

Shelley Beach at Cabbage Tree Bay is a little busy, but I change into bikini in a handy cubicle by the restaurant anyway and find a spot on the sand near the water’s edge by some rocks. The sand is warm, almost hot, and I look at the inviting water, lapping darkly turquoise at the sand. I leave my things on the sand next to an ageing German couple, parcelled carefully up under my purple bag so I can spot them if they go for a walk (my things, not the German couple). The water is cold, but pleasantly so – there are several of us bobbing about gingerly at thigh-depth; occasionally one will duck under and squeak but start swimming. I am a little too nervous to entrust myself entirely to the lapping waves, especially as there arte some jolly sharp rocks down there too, which are fine if you pad over them carefully, but a scraped knee was not on my list of things to do today, so I stay upright. I bob up and down myself, shivering in the cool water, but enjoy the feeling of the salt drying silkily in the air onto my skin when I emerge.
Ooh! A fish!
I stand still, staring intently into the blue-green ripples, and a fair-sized green-grey fish swims lugubriously and daintily past my leg on an errand of its own. Looking more carefully, I see that the bay is teeming with tiny fish and a few larger ones. I peer intently into the water, down to the gritty, multicoloured sand, patterned from above with waves. There are tiny grey ones, sleek as pencils, with pearl-bright eyes; big friendly ones of sandy grey and blue, small stripy black and white ones with yellow tails; there may be others too, the snorkelers seem to be having fun further out!
Eventually, I emerge, a little chilly, and longing for the warm sun on my skin again to dry out, which doesn’t take very long! I follow the guide again, and find myself walking around the shoreline, high above the waves on a cliff. It is a lovely view. I am tiring a little now, and want to look at something else; I am tired of trailing around with the other visitors and feel I could use some local tranquillity; there must be some somewhere…
I wend on, not entirely sure if I am going the right way, but persevering nonetheless! The route I am following seems to take me into a housing estate, which puzzles me slightly. However, it is a very nice one, full of mock-Georgian houses and with the Seminary in the distance, looming over it all. Sadly, the Seminary is now an international college of tourism, which seems rather ironic, I feel sad for the building, so majestic and beautiful, to be so ignominiously overrun with commercialism... I keep going, past roses and big, suburban hibiscus bushes bedecked with spiders.

There are many spiders here at the moment – it is approaching an arachnophobe’s nightmare, but I love it – they are all Golden Orb Webs and they hang like odd fruits in their delicately gilded webs, each wearing stripy yellow socks and fluffy brown spotted jumpers…
Parkhill, approaching the Reserve, is far quieter and the Orb-Webs are bigger – longer stripy socks! Also here are the Squashed Cat Birds and the baritone twitter of many Gobble-Gobble-Um birds.
I pause a moment to scribble in my notebook and hear a soft patter and smell a delicate spicy scent. It’s raining! But only a little bit, and it soon stops. I take the path suggested into an invitingly green area of bush – the pathway is boarded in places as it wends through the trees and is cool, green and quiet.
Ooh!
I think I might just have seen a platypus!
It was definitely something interesting; something large and flat just shot off from a rock almost beneath my feet. It had a leg at each corner and a tail and head of almost equal size… I wonder…?
J
It may of course have been a lizard, a monitor or goanna perhaps, or an outsized skink – but it was certainly relatively large and extremely shy, which is rather exciting. I smile to myself and carry on. There are lot of black butterflies here, with deep ochre blotches on each wing, they flap slowly but make much progress, which makes them impossible to photograph! I think I saw one laying eggs earlier – when I inspected the leaf she had been busy on, there was a little forest of tiny white hairs, each with a dainty egg on the end – I wished them well and walked on.
There are so many little critters about! Something rabbit-sized rustles in the bushes as I head down some half-hidden steps through the greenery. I come upon a monument here – only a small thing, a plaque really – and see that it commemorates the demise of Governor Phillip, who was killed here by an Aboriginal due to a misunderstanding.
I emerge below the frondy greenery and the first thing I notice is a little waterfall pattering delicately over a huge rock. There is very little water, but the ferns and mosses seem to like its gentle drips.
Then I see the beach.
I am immediately entranced. This little hidden cove is called Collins Beach and it is delightful. A little half-moon of sparkling, silken, gilded sand slopes down from the grassy dunes into the silver-blue ocean, where a flock of seagulls bob up and down in the glittering waves and argue in a siblingish fashion over the best perches on a sun-warmed rock. There are two people at the far end of the beach and a little tin boat pulled up onto the sand.
I have found my tranquil spot. That’s better…
I sit on the beach by a pile of shells and sift my hand through them – there are so many beautiful formations – mussels, tiny tall twists, little fat swirls, speckled curves and striped scalloped discs. I pick up a handful but try to remember as I pick the prettiest I can see, that most should stay here where I found them…
Shells duly inspected, I pick my way across the silvery sand, thongs in one hand, book in the other. There are so many photographs waiting to be taken here I just don’t know where to begin – the bay itself is delightful, the view across to far distant Sydney quite impressive, and the sea and birds fascinating. My mind is made up for me when a playful tern arrives on the scene. He is clearly after his dinner, but the seagulls are unhappy with his table manners, so there are a few chases across the bay before he is left in peace to fish. He swoops elegantly over the bay, high above the gulls, then folds his wings, dives and plunges just below the surface with a wet ‘schclop!’ and clips a fish out of the sea, bulleting through the waves with wet wings to rise again, fish in beak. He tries this once too often near the bunch of gulls and two of them take offence and rise into the air behind him, chasing him diagonally across the bay. They tire of this eventually and leave him to it, and he fishes a little way away from them - pulling silver fish after silver fish from the lapping waves.

I could watch him forever, but my stomach has reminded me it needs feeding, and the golden sinking sun has reminded me that I need to head back towards Sydney soon. I reluctantly climb the dripping staircase recommended by my guide and head along a green path towards Stuart Street.
I wend along the coast here, looking at boats and bays as I pass and come to a little kiosk on Stuart Street. It is, unsurprisingly, called the Stuart Street Kiosk and I am beckoned in by the owner, who offers me a glass of wine (which I politely decline, knowing that if I partake I will probably just snooze quietly in the sun somewhere and miss my ferry back!). However, the owner (amusingly, also called Stuart) gets me a drink, serving me very informally, and invites me to join him and his two friends on the tiny veranda. They are a chirpy, intelligent Aboriginal and a friendly, cheeky blonde lady from Sydney. There is a lovely local atmosphere here, which I enjoy briefly before heading off with a friendly word from this intertesting trio of friends.
I just make it to the ferry with five minutes to spare and lodge myself at the back of the boat, where I can see where we have been and enjoy the remaining sun. The rolling motion here is very soothing and I feel a little dozy in the warm sun.
We glide powerfully and gently through the water back into Sydney again and I take another look at the Opera House as it slides past. It looks like so many things, yet not really like any of them… A basket of shells perhaps or a sleepy tortoise. It fans like a flock of doves from one angle, gleaming ivory in the sun like pale spread tails. It has a strange beauty, but is compulsive nonetheless.

I think I could easily call Sydney home.
However, I like to think that the world itself is my home, and Sydney is a part of it!

;)