Manly – Philipp's TravelBlog

Today we took the ferry vom Circular Quay to Manly. We, that are still the same 7 Germans.

On the way to Circular Quay we saw our first Koala, just opposite Hyde Park.
Well, we think it is a Koala, because we have no idea what else it should be, and it was on an Eucalyptus tree.

The bus driver from the Blue Mountains trip had told us that there are several hundred types of Eucalyptus trees, and the Koalas only like a few.
Very picky animals 😀

The ferry left at noon and took ~25 minutes for the tour.
At Manly Wharf I noticed a well known discount market from Germany: ALDI!
Without me, the other’s would have missed it. Now, we all went in.
I bought good old Haribo and chocolat from Germany 🙂
For the first time I have seen sane prices on food. Aldi FTW!

In Manly we split up, Nicole, Sabi and Max went to the beach with me where I went straight for a swim.
The waves were even better than at Bondi Beach. Unfortunately it wasn’t as sunny as the other days and hence not as warm.
For that reason I was the only one who went for the swim. The water still had 20-21°.

Around 3pm we left the beach for Manly OceanWorld. Before we entered, we took lovely photos on the cliffs on the inside bay.
OceanWorld is more than cool. There were many thrilling animals to see, the most impressive to me was a huge stingray, about 2.5 meters in diameter.
When we went back to Sydney by ferry, it was already dark, and we could see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge illuminated.

See below for the photos.

Now some worthwile notes:

Something I forgot to tell you earlier: when I was walking through the Botanic Garden with Alex, suddenly a Cockadoo flew around the corner at full speed. The shock almost gave us a heart attack, and hadn’t we duckec, I’m sure it would have flown right into us!
I hate to be surrounded by Germans here. Most guests in this hostel are German, and since the beginning of my travel I’m with other Germans. So far I could hardly practise/improve my English, instead I’m developing a bavarian / palatinate german accent – it’s absolutely horrible!!! I’m so looking forward to next week when I’m leaving Sydney without these Germans. Not that I don’t like them, but I’m here to speak english!
At Manly Beach I have seen swimmers who did a kind of body surfing. They had flippers on their feet and kind of a small flipper attached to one of their hands. When the wave came, they stretched and kinda surfed on these flippers. That looked pretty cool =)
Australians recycle far less than Germans. We are tought from childhood on to divide waste, paper, metal and plastics into separate bins. Here there are only two: waste and bottles/cans. Even batteries and other poisonous stuff goes into waste. That really goes against my good education.
I cannot get over the shortness of the days and how fast it turns from day into night. At 6pm it’s pitch black and it feels to me like at least 10pm.
The composition of the different buildings in Sydney is amazing. You have old-style houses surrounded by skyscrapers. The “old” houses seem centuries old, but that is only because of the sand stone. If they were built a hundred years ago that’s a lot here. At home it’s not a lot until it was build at least 500 years ago.
The moon is twisted here. When it’s a natural C in Germany, it’s turned by approx. – 140° here, as you can hopefully see on one of my pics.
Every second bloody place, object, lookout, building, bench, tree or whatever does or does not need a name is named after Queen Victoria. The Aussies really aren’t the most creative people in the world. I find it outdated anyway when a country has a royal family and king and/or queen on top.

Okay, my list of hopefully interesting observations here down under is empty for now.
But I promise, not long and it’s full again. Cya!

From 2011-05-22 Manly. Posted by Philipp Hübner on 5/23/2011 (83 items)