Manly is the most beautiful place I’ve seen so far, even in the misty rain. We took the bus from our home in Neutral Bay to Manly. We started out at the train station, passing lots of little shops along the way. We walked through a small community market and sampled homemade pasta sauce and browsed the stalls. Afterwards, we began our trek through to the North Head of Manly so we could oversee the whole city. Hiking up through the brush is not usually my idea of a good time but the scenery was so beautiful, the hike went pretty quickly. We hiked up a large cliff so we could see the entire Manly Beach area and the inlets beyond. Walking up further we found a pretty little pond created from the rain we had had earlier in the week. It was interesting seeing this little pond on top of this cliff overlooking the ocean. We passed such beautiful trees with bright yellow blossoms and little green birds feeding off of the pollen. After walking through the brush a little further we came across a coffee shop run by authentic Italian women who fussed and mussed about in true Italian fashion. I thanked them for my cappuccino with a “Grazie” and caught them by surprise. It was fun trying to recall all my Italian language by listening to them speak. Around the corner from the coffee shop, we saw the whole Sydney skyline from across the bay. Because of the mist, the skyline was visible only as a gray outline and we took pause to enjoy the view. To the left of us was the wide-open ocean and to the right, the inlet which feeds the Sydney harbors. It was absolutely worth the trip. We walked on up to the bus which took us the rest of the way down the hill to Manly Station. By this time we had been walking for over an hour so we gave ourselves a break. The weather had begun to turn towards rain and we decided to hop the bus to head home so we could do some grocery shopping and relax. I hope we will return to the Manly hiking trails during spring when everything is blooming and the weather hasn’t gotten to hot. If its this great in winter, it’ll be amazing later in the year.
Bryan
I had one of the best days yesterday hiking up North Head in Manly. The North Head area is located in Manly, the north portion of the mouth of the harbor.
The area supplied us with beautiful views out into the ocean, the massive cliffs of Watsons Bay, and back through the harbor into down town Sydney. This area was previously used for artillery training for the Australian Army. During WWII, North Head was one of the most heavily fortified sites in Australia. Heavy guns, connected by tunnels, were placed here to fire on enemy ships out to sea. The gunners stationed here initially lived in tents and later in the barracks were built.
The hike started from the beach area in manly. We continued along the trail following the cliffs. We were lucky to only come across one giant spider, which we avoided. We then stumbled upon what was a pool on the top of the hill. I call it a hill; because coming from Nevada, this was a bump in the ground. The rock that makes up North Head is sedimentary Hawkesbury Sandstone which has a hard outer surface that does not allow the water to easily seep into the rock.