March 27 - A Manly Man at Manly Beach

A MANLY MAN AT MANLY BEACH

Although not by original design, today turned out to be something of an endurance biathlon for me.  When we had visited Manly with Keith & Di in July 2014 (their winter), we had walked along a scenic walkway that runs south from Manly Beach. Today I would retrace some of that route.  I hadn't planned to go far, but just to go exploring.  There are some beautiful sights ... Shelly Beach, Cabbage Tree Bay (where people swim and snorkel on an adjacent reef), then onward to North Head, where there are old gun batteries built for the defence (there I go again, spelling it in Aussie) of Sydney Harbour.  It was steeper and longer than I had anticipated, so obviously had taken longer ... considerably longer.

The trail ... uphill, of course!

Fishing off the rocks
'
Manly Beach

WWII artillery battery on North Head


















Oh, and Aussies do have a sense of humour ...


After getting cleaned up and recovering for a short while, I set out for Warringah Mall, which was far enough away to take a bus, in search of merchandise for professional Aussie rugby and Rules teams.  I had no trouble finding the mall, but finding my way around in the mall was a different story.  The layout of the mall wasn't linear, but amorphous; and if there was a directory in the mall, it was well camouflaged.  I wasted a ton of time, and the primary sports gear store I wanted to search through was a total bust.  (The same brand store I had visited in Sydney in 2014 had a ton of stuff from every AFL and NRL team; this one had a real paucity -- in fact, more NBA and NFL gear than AFL and NRL!  The young man I had to chase down to wait on me didn't even know who the Greater Western Sydney Giants were, i.e., a Sydney area AFL team that played in the Grand Final, which is the AFL's Super Bowl, last year.)  But wait ... it got worse.  After limited success at the mall, I exited it, looking for the bus stop.  Somehow I ended up on the opposite side of the mall from which I had entered, and hiked 2-3 km back to the elusive bus stop.  Lots of wasted time and energy on a warm day!  Finally I caught the bus, got off at the right place, and fought off starvation and collapse by getting a shish (Middle Eastern shishkabob stores are big in Australia) and a slice of pizza to go with my Solo lemon drink.  I then needed to cool off, so I met Keith on the beach and went for a body surf.  That day the waves were milder than they had been in Nambucca, but we caught a few nice ones.  And the water temp was cool but not cold -- just about perfect for a warm day.





Susan and I had told Keith & Di that we wanted to take them to dinner at a nearby seafood restaurant, and tonight seemed to be the best night.  We had persused menus for a couple of days, and The Fish Cafe looked like the best bet.  After having drinks on the Hopkins' balcony, we wandered a couple of blocks to the restaurant and had a superb meal and some really nice Aussie wine.  A filling ending to a full day.


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