18. A Day at Manly

In Australia Manly is pretty famous as a holiday and beach destination but if you don’t live here then you might never have heard of it. I guess that’s because the beaches of the Sydney area are over-shadowed by the ever-mentioned Bondi.

With a spare day between looking at flats and arranging our financial affairs we thought it would be nice to be tourists again and with that we boarded the Manly ferry at wharf 3 of Circular Quay. 30 minutes and a pleasant boat trip later we were at Manly pier.

Unbelievably, it was busier on the wharf than the airport when landed at Sydney International. Despite it being a Wednesday the place was mobbed and the short walk to the beach had plenty of pushing and shoving going on much like the sort you have to put up with in Marks and Spencer’s around Christmas time.

As we reached spitting distance of the golden stretch of sand we realised that we had forgotten to bring beach towels with us. That didn’t matter though as there were plenty of shops selling all kinds of beach tat with the obligatory shop DJ shouting “Everything here is less than $10. You’ll never shop anywhere ever again.”

A see-through, paper thin, horrifically coloured towel later and a wallet that was lighter by about $5 we were ready for the beach. As beaches go it wasn’t that bad. Nice and long with reasonable surf and the ubiquitous life guards. There were loads of volley ball nets and surf board rental places, as well as some decent bars and some awesome places to eat. Even though the beach was really busy there was still plenty of room. I doubt it would be that way during the weekend thought I suspect a visit to some of the more northerly beaches would be a better bet.

We stopped at a place called Café Rouge for lunch and it turned out to be probably the best meal we had since arriving. Isla had simple beer battered cod that was divine and I had a lamb burger cooked to perfection on Turkish bread with caramelised onions and rocket. Outstanding!

We lazed about the beach for the rest of the day on our crappy towels, books in hand and soaked up some much need sand. It wasn’t difficult to find a quite spot as swimming was limited to the south end of the beach due to the amount of rip curl activity to the north so the north end was almost abandoned. Several applications of sun cream later we met up with some friends and had a couple of tasty beers and the Bavarian Beer Hall on the wharf followed by some incredible pizza’s from a place called Wood and Stone. Who would have thought that goat’s cheese, sweet potato, pumpkin and sun-blushed tomatoes would have gone so well together?

Manly is one of those places that you should visit but I guess I would sum it up as Sydney’s Brighton; a bit more upmarket than Bondi but really no different from any other tourist-trap beach. Would I visit again? Of course, I’ve got mates who stay there. Besides that I’m not sure, but that Lamb-burger… out of this world!