And Let's Not Forget The Beaches!!

Bondi Beach, one of the more famous Sydney beaches

The last thing I still had to do on my list was to relax a few days just sitting on the beach. There were a handful of beaches in the area and I decided to hit them all up. There was a walking trail that traced the eastern coast of the island that started at Bondi Beach and went all the way down to Coogee Beach. The walk was about 4 miles long and I thought that would be how I spent the day. I started the day at Bondi and after a while packed up my stuff and walked down the trail a ways until I came to the next beach where I stopped, enjoyed the sand and water a little bit then moved on. I kept this up the entire afternoon until I reached Coogee Beach at the end of the trail.


The swimming pool adjacent to Bondi Beach


The winding eastern coast


The end of the trail, Coogee Beach


The second day of beach fun was spent up on the northenr part of Sydney in the suburb of Manly. When James Cook was sailing the harbor way back when he noted in his log that the inhabitants of this part were very 'manly' in appearance, so the name stuck. (Just a little bit of the info I learned, and who said vacations can't be a learning experience!). Manly Beach was probably my favorite of them all. From the heart of Sydney you had to take a ferry to get to the other side of the harbor. After that you needed to walk through Manly (the town) to get to the water. All along the way were shops and restaurants that had the best seafood I had had in a long time, not counting the sushi that I eat in Japan. The beach itself stretched for what seemed forever and it wasn't hard for me to kill and entire afternoon here.


Manly Beach

The entrance to the Manly ferry

Downtown Manly