One of the things that we do during some Sydney stays is to take the ferry across to Manly. The ferries all leave from Circular Quay, so there is always a chance of seeing large cruise ships docked at the passenger terminal next to the ferry wharves. The top one here is "Queen Elizabeth". I have not been on her, but did meet up with her in Sydney Harbour when I was on the "Queen Mary 2". The smaller ship is "Explorer of the Seas" and I have cruised on her sister ship "Voyager of the Seas" a couple of times. When these ships are about to leave in the late afternoon the top decks are usually lined with passengers watching the departure. Several times we have stood on deck and noticed an interesting balcony with lots of people waving back to us. So Mum did some searching and found out that the balcony was part of a restaurant called Appetito. This time it was us on that balcony, drinking Chianti and waving to the passengers on the Queen as she departed. Mum lived in Manly until she was nearly 5 and we keep an eye on how the suburb changes. It is all plazas and tons of tourists in the town centre now. The flat where her aunt lived is still there, just a few streets back from the harbour. The beach is still one of the best in Sydney, not as big and crowded as Bondi. In my opinion it is better than the Hawaiian beaches, but there is a link to Hawaii here; this is the beach where Duke Kahanamoku introduced surfing to Australia. There are more photos of Manly in earlier posts if you want to use the search box.
Labels: New South Wales, Sydney
# posted by Bart Bear @ 2:39 pm
