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As it was raining yesterday I didn't really get chance to do too much but I did manage to find Chinatown for some lunch. Nothing much else happened yesterday so I am not going to bore you with entry in my blog.
It was nice to wake up this morning and see that the sun is shining yet again, I think I can get used to this weather. Today as it looks like it will be a nice day all day, I am going to head over to Manly (a beach resort in Northern Sydney) for a walk around by the coast line. The best way to get there was to catch the ferry from Circular Quay and then across to Manly, walk around the coast and then catch the bus back from Spit Point.
I headed out of Adam’s house at around 09:00 and managed to catch a waiting ferry over to Manly which took around 30 minutes. Arriving at Manly I popped in to the shop to buy some water and food for my walk nearly giving in to the smell of McDonald’s breakfasts being served directly outside the ferry quay. I was strong and went in the supermarket. I popped into the visitor centre to see if they had a map of the local walks and she told me about 2 of them both around 10-15km each, much to her surprise I said I would do both together and took copies of both of the maps. From the look on her face she must have thought I was mad, and wouldn’t have time to do both today.
The first part of the walk took me east and around the peninsular passing the following places:-
Manly Cove
Little Manly Cove
Spring Cove
in to Sydney Harbour National Park
Old Quarantine Station
North Head Army Barracks
Sydneys North Head.....
North Head is a headland south-east of the suburb of Manly. It is part of Sydney Harbour National Park. The headland is a promontory of sandstone and is 3.85 square kilometres in area.
The Sydney Quarantine station is located on North Head and is one of the few facilities still in existence which once operated in each state of Australia until the 1980s. From 1828 Spring Cove, on the western side of North Head, was used to quarantine new arrivals to Sydney to minimise the spread of communicable diseases such as smallpox and whooping cough. In 1832, the whole area of North Head was set aside for a quarantine station. A permanent quarantine facility was set up in 1837 and continued to operate until 1984. Vietnamese refugees were housed there in 1975 and Cyclone Tracy victims from Darwin, Northern Territory in 1975-6. The Station was finally closed in 1984 and the 'management' of the site passed to the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service.
From 1934, defence facilities were installed on the headland but were wound down in 1945. From 1953 there was a School of Artillery and it used the former defence facilities. The harbour reserve was established in 1979. The School of Artillery relocated to Puckapunyal army base in 1998. There is now an artillery museum on the headland. In 2001 the site was passed to the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust for management. Also located on North Head is the Australian Institute of Police Management, housed in a secure compound which formerly was the 'Seamens Quarters' of the Quarantine Station; a place where sailors with acquired STDs were treated and securely confined behind high sandstone walls (prior to the development of modern antibiotics).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Heads#North_Head
There were some good lookout points from which I got another perspective on the Sydney skyline. I also got a little lost as I came to a wall with a small hole through it and I could see a sign the said "DANGER, private property, enter at your own risk" so I thought that the path must go around the wall so I walked around for about 10 minutes where the track kind of disappeared and I decided to turn back as it was obviously the wrong way. In the end I crouched down and crawled through the hole in the wall and I was back on the correct path.
The end of this walk was the car park for the North Head Army Barracks where I saw a rabbit laying on the tarmac half dead looking like it had Myxomatosis. I did think about going over to kill it buy I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. So I walked off thinking that the poor thing needs to be run over or something just to put it out of its misery. I hope someone did.
From the car park I headed back in to the town stopping at Manly Beach for a meat pie and a drink before heading down the main high street in town (The Corso) where all the surf-shops, cafes and burger joints are, through the town centre and on to the start of Manly to Spit Bridge Walk.
This part of the walk took me around the western peninsular and though another area designated as Sydney National Park. The walk mainly stuck to the coastline which was a fairly easy to walk and in parts there were a couple of steeper tracks to do. There were some great views from this walk with some high cliffs overlooking some surfers below and I also managed to see an Iguana sunbathing in a tree.
I finally rejoined the road and from here I caught a bus back in to Sydney CBD and jumped off with a short walk back to Adam’s apartment. I am glad that I bought the weekly pass the other day as both the ferry and the bus were included and didn’t cost me anything today.
In total today I think that I must have walked a minimum of about 30km around Manly doing the two walks and also the part connecting them together. Time for dinner as I am starving now!
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