Manly to the Spit

Once back in Sydney, I decided to do another of the walks in the harbour area. Because of the spider bite or whatever it was that had happened on my first day in Sydney, I hadn't done a couple of the walks that I thought would be nice, so now I had a second chance. I headed out to Manly again. I have always liked the name of this spot. Manly. I think there's great potential for political incorrectness with the place. Look, isn't that Manly? Are you a Manly man? Are you a Manly woman? I did a Manly activity today. And so on. So I thought I would do a Manly walk. Well another one. I had already done the Manly to North Head walk. Now I decided to head the opposite direction. I was going from Manly to the Spit. So I went down to Circular Quay and took the Manly ferry (there's another one) over to Manly Beach and started out. The first part of the walk is through some of the Manly neighbourhoods (!?!).

There are a lot of nice houses in the area, as there are all along the Sydney harbourfront, no matter where you are. It must cost a fortune to have property on the water here. And anyone who had property from way back is probably very well off now.

After the initial residential areas, the walk passes into another nature preserve. All the preserves of Sydney are part of the Sydney Harbour National Park. The preserve near Manly has a well-maintained walking path and when you are in the preserve, it's almost like there isn't a great, big city all around you.

The trail led up to the clifftops and from there a nice view down into the middle harbour area is had. This was another Sunday, so all the mad sailboat owners were out on the water again. There was some kind of race going on and all these sailboats were headed to round a buoy and go back to the start line. I saw one near crash in this race.

The lookout also gives a nice look back to the Manly wharf and the Manly ferry as it comes and goes.

The walk leads around the harbour and inland for a while along one of the arms of the harbour. It passes through bushlands...

...and then onto beaches with more posh houses. Some of these people must have trouble with people climbing on their fences at high tide. They had big signs stating that anyone who did so would be prosecuted.

A short distance past this beach was the Spit. I'm not sure if it was the small gap that was the Spit or the bridge over the gap. But in any case this small gap leads into the inner harbour area and even more expensive houses. To go around the arm of water that extends inland takes quite a long time because of the distance involved. Very early in settled times, there were little ferries across this spot and eventually a bridge was built. This seems to be a lifting bridge of some sort, judging by the stoplights and the grate in the middle of the bridge. And I believe that when I took the harbour cruise tour when I was first here 15 years ago, the tour went up into this arm of the harbour. But it was a long time ago and I don't remember clearly.

The Manly to Spit walk is about 9 or 10 kilometers and it took about 2 and a half hours. It is another of the nice natural areas around the harbour. The people of Sydney are really lucky to have such a great place to trek and explore.