Wanderung 33

Sydney Harbor: Manly

Neville had suggested taking the Sydney Harbor Ferry system to explore the harbor area, that turned out to be a great idea. Neville made appointments for a luncheon in a tower in the Central Business District that had a rotating restaurant in it, so we decided to take the relatively short ferry ride from Circular Quay, where the ferry lines all terminate and the main cruise ship dock is located, to Manly, near the harbor entrance. Of course, we took the suburban commuter train into Sydney getting a nice view of the harbor bridge from the train.

Right off the bat as we left Circular Quay, we had a great view of a Celebrity cruise ship and the Sydney Harbor Bridge on the left, and the iconic Sydney Opera House on the right. Then we passed a small island in the harbor that had functioned first as a fort in the early settlement days, and then later as a prison for Sydney.

We also saw the Governor`s House on the opposite shore and headed to the three headlands that define the entrance to Sydney Harbor, the Middle Head, North Head, and South Head. The South Head was particularly pretty, with a small white lighthouse standing atop the cliff at the end of the peninsula.

At the entrance we encountered choppy seas as that was where the harbor opens into the South Pacific Ocean. Well before reaching the open sea, however, our ferry turned northward towards Manly. We debarked there, and although there was a pretty little beach where we docked, we walked just 2-3 blocks across a narrow isthmus to the truly huge Manly beach. Large waves were cresting onto the the beautiful white sandy shore, and clearly this was a a beach used by surfers as well as the general bathing public.

Monika went in for a quick paddle, taking the obligatory selfie in the process, but then we retraced our steps down the line of boutiques and old buildings on the main drag to the ferry terminal, stopping for a nice ice cream cone along the way. The ferry ride back to Circular Quay we the outbound course in reverse.

Jumping off the ferry, we snagged a metro train one station southward to the St. James station and then walked a block over to the Sydney 360 tower with its revolving restaurant on top. Getting up to the restaurant was a bit confusing with the elevators as we had to get off at level 4, sign in for the restaurant, and then take a smaller but much faster elevator up another 40-50 stories to the buffet restaurant level. There we spent well over an hour having a leisurely lunch from the nice buffet offerings while watching Sydney rotate around below us.

Our lofty dining perch gave us absolutely super views of the main harbor to the East, the airport in the next harbor down to the South, and the Parramutta River winding its way into the extensive suburbs of Sydney to the West. Directly below us we saw parks, memorials, the Victoria building, and the urban canyon between all the downtown skyscrapers that mark Sydney`s Central Business District. Such fun!

After lunch we took a ferry that looped to the West around the small bay that houses the Maritime Museum (which we visited in Wanderung 20) and the old Bangaroo Wharf where we had begun the cross-Pacific cruise in Wanderung 26 but is now closed. But a replacement cruise ship dock had been built in the next bay over, and there we saw a Pacific & Orient cruise ship ship loading passengers. Surprisingly, Sydney only has 2 cruise ship docks, which must severely limit the total cruise ship traffic through the port.

We were quite fatigued after a day of sightseeing and returned to Hornsby for a quick dinner, a long evening discussion, and an early bedtime.