Tuesday 9th February 2010
The sun was shing as predicted this morning and we stuck to the plan of not doing a great deal. Kath spoke to Lucy on Skype, first time she has used it whilst at the same time, I was on the phone to Vicki.
We made our way down onto the beach via the stairs that have direct access according to the owners claims. They are true to some extent but a decent set of steps would have been difficult enough for Kath. These were from one rock to another and the handrail only went down the first few. We managed however and set out our towels for a day in the sun. I went into the sea, the rollers were 2 - 3 metres in height which was good fun until I swam out behind them. I was bobbing around going up and down over the waves before they broke into surf when one rather large one broke early and caught me unawares. As I came back up to the surface, another crashed down on top of me and I swallowed a load of water which is most unpleasant at the best of times. I tried to get my breath and watched each wave coming towards me and breaking just when I didn't want it to. I wasn't in any real difficulty but you can see how weaker swimmers are caught out in the rip tides here. I was quite pleased when I felt sand under my feet and called that a day. It's great fun if you have a surfboard but swimming is not advisable in those conditions. Fortunately, no Great Whites were in the area to pick me off though there were some quite nasty bluebottle jellyfish that turned up later in the afternoon in their thousands.
After an hour or more, we decided to venture further down the promenade and so I went to get the wheelchair. We passed the place where we were led to believe we were originally staying which is right on the beach at North Steyne, near to the restaurants and shops and not up that damned cliff at the north end of the beach. I am still annoyed about what has happened despite the apartment owners being very helpful. It would have life a hell of a lot easier at the other location. We stopped for lunch before continuing around the south end of the bay and past Cabbage Tree Bay and up the slope to stop overlooking the ocean from the top of the cliff at the other end of Manly and near to the North Head entrance to Sydney Harbour. I went for a walk into the National Park whilst Kath read her book. I found some great views of the sea from there but turned back before reaching North Head.
When I rejoined Kath, we re-traced our steps along the seafront before stopping on the beach near to the North Steyne Lifesaving Club. There are three on the beach, Manly to the south, North Steyne in the middle and Queenscliff to the north. The competion between each club is immense and they are all really proud of the splendid work they do. I think I fell asleep for an hour, pushing this wheelchair will either get me fit or kill me, not sure which. At around 6pm we wnet back up thye cliff for a shower and change before going out for a meal. We ate at a restaurant on the beach near North Steyne. I had John Dory fillets on beetroot with salad and basil oil....wonderful. Kath tried fish yet again, despite not really liking it and chose Barramundi. She tried to eat it, bless her, but gave up half way through leaving a full Barramundi fillet....disgraceful. We shared an apple and blueberry crumble as we were warned that it was going to be a huge piece and they were not wrong. It was absolutely gorgeous aswell. We finished the night at Ivanhoe's on The Corso before getting a taxi back.
That is the last full day in Aussie as we fly to Singapore tomorrow afternoon and start to recoup some more of the hours we lost on the way here. It's an 8 flight with 3 hours time difference. I thought I had booked transport from the airport at Changi to the hotel but looking at the itinery, I haven't.................more expence. See you in Singapore tomorrow all being well.
A & K
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