Sydney is all inside a harbor, with a mouth like the Golden Gate with steep cliffs on either side (but no bridge), and the beaches are on the outside. We took the ferry to Manly Beach to the north one day, landing on the harbor side and walking across the little isthmus to the ocean side.
[Swells rolling in from the open sea make the ferries rock and splash.]
Quite a few surfers on a beach break at Manly, and on a point break a little further out. Really big waves, coming off the Tasman Sea. Odd that the ocean has a different name here.
[Surfer at Manly Beach.]
I went swimming, and had to keep ducking under the huge breakers. We walked along the beach to a cute neighborhood called, get this, Fairy Bower. So British-sounding. Great tidepools there, and a “tide pool” of saltwater by the ocean, refilled daily by the sea, with a ladder and a little walk around it.
[Pool by the harbor. Note the ships nearby.]
Another day I swam in an outdoor heated saltwater pool right by the harbor in downtown Sidney, it’s beside the botanical gardens.
[Flying foxes dozing in the Sydney Botanical Gardens.]
After the swim, I saw giant fruit bats with five foot wingspans hanging in a lot of the botanical garden’s trees, a few of them flapping around. They’re called flying foxes. At dusk you see them circling over the harbor, on their way to go out and forage for fruit—they may fly up to twenty kilometers out from their nesting trees. The farmers don’t like the flying foxes, but they’re a protected species. They actually do a lot of good, by pollinating the trees where they feed.
[A Moreton Bay fig tree, a wonderful, huge Australian tree you see pretty often. Moreton Bay (near Brisbane) also features a tasty crustacean called a “bug,” which is kind of like a short, wide lobster.]
On our second-to-last day in Sydney we made it to Bondi Beach, took the bus there. It has lovely sugar-fine sand, a crescent, with quite a large village bordering it, bigger than Cruz, almost like Berkeley, with quaint cottages with flowers and vines. Surfers on the waves.
[Wild parrots and lorakeets can be found nibbling the vegetation downtown.]
The wind was very, very strong, so we didn’t stay right on the beach that long, we went over to a bluff on one side and sat by another saltwater pool, this one just a few inches higher that the ocean, built on the rocks, with waves splashing in. We saw an exceedingly tan man who was even fatter than me—I’m eating sweets every chance I get, gelato, almond croissant, profiteroles, you name it. We saw two cute young woman hop down to the beach with their boards and go in—reminding us of our daughter Isabel in her high school years.
We walked along the bluff, which was weirdly sculpted by wind and surf.
[Luna Park in Sydney.]
On our last night in Sydney, we rode the ferry around another part of the harbor, passing the funky “Luna Park” amusement park. We got some paella at a street festival, walking around very slowly on our weary legs. Right after we laid down in our room, a fireworks show started over the water. I ran back outside to see it. It’s a good life.
[Carollers at the Friday Night Market in the Rocks district of Sydney.]
There’s a pub downstairs called “the oldest pub in Sydney” and it’s constantly full of beefy Australians. Sometimes you even see guys wearing kilts. After we went to bed—this being Friday—they kicked out the jams, they had a guitarist and they sang, in massive beefy tearful unison, songs until midnight. Not that it kept us awake. Resting our weary trotters.