We got up reasonably early, just after 7am, but it was still 9:30am by the time we got dressed, had our breakfast buffet, then got ready to go out for the day. Our destination this day was Manly Beach. We caught the fast ferry and I couldn’t resist a couple more pictures of the Opera House and Bridge.
The route to Manly went through most of Sydney Harbour, retracing the path the Viking Orion took coming into the harbour. We had a view of the harbour mouth from the inside. I was very glad the weather was better on the day we sailed in than it was on this day. It took about 30 minutes to get to Manly but that was long enough for Barb to catch a few zzz’s on the water.
We were happy to find the Tourist Information station just off the wharf. The nice lady there told us to do just what I had planned we would do: walk down the Corso to the beach, then the short walk to Sandy Beach. The Corso was a pedestrian street a few blocks long lined with touristy shops and restaurants. We stopped at a liquor store still in search of Mark’s Vantage Botanical but still no luck. We had better luck at a chemist shop with another box of eucalyptus Kleenex for Barb. Good thing because now she had my cold from a few days before.
Manly Beach was an impressive strand of sand with a good number of surfers waiting for a decent set of waves that were slow to come. It was a cool, cloudy day with little wind. Not great for the beach or surfing but pretty good for me.
We walked the short seaside path toward Sandy Beach. There was a public seawater swimming pool that looked somewhat enticing, along with a cute iguana (sea dragon?) enjoying the view.
Barb found a likely bench by Sandy Beach while I explored the short walk around the headland. There were a few good views but also more steps and less wind than I hoped for. I came back sweating profusely from my short walk. It was sad.
We sat for a while at Barb’s bench, then ventured along the path back toward Manly Beach. Barb stopped to put her toes in the swimming pool. She deemed the water chilly.
We made it back to the beach and settled on another bench so I could watch the surfers for a while and cool off a little. Since it was already past noon, we decided to search out some fish and chips and decided on the New Brighton Hotel where I could get a beer and we could get a table so as not to be attacked by seagulls. We actually got one of the premium seats on the balcony and shared a pretty decent plate of fish and chips.
We caught the ferry back to Circular Quay and went back to the hotel for a bit around 2pm. Barb wasn’t ready to call it a day so we decided to walk to Mrs. Macquaries Chair for a photo op. Barb wanted to sit on the chair. We double checked our route with the concierge, got a minor course correction to avoid several flights of steps and were on our way.
One does not get in Barb’s way when she has a destination in mind so we marched as directly as possible past the Opera House and along the seawall path of the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens. We had a few more photo ops along the way.
We ran into an obstacle when the path was blocked by construction that turned out to be a temporary stage and grandstand for an upcoming open air production of West Side Story.
We had to detour slightly before finding Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair, then had to wait a bit for a Chinese tour group to get out of the way. Finally, Barb had her photo op. We had a chance to sit together for a bit between tour groups and proved once again why we don’t take selfies very often.
It was time to head back but I wanted to wander a bit more through the Botanical Gardens. I guided Barb back past the detour and wished her good luck getting back to the hotel. This was potentially the last I saw of her.
I wandered for a while in the garden, admiring the trees and also the wildlife. A set of macaws made a lot of racket in one set of trees which I tried to capture. They were mostly quiet while I recorded but you get a sense of their mumblings.
I enjoyed a leisurely stroll back toward the Opera House. The gardens were quite pleasant and I could have lingered longer but I didn’t want to be too delayed getting back to the hotel.
I couldn’t resist trying to get a few artsy shots of the Opera House. It struck me that this may be the finest example of 20th century architecture. I tried to think of competitors and only came up with the Empire State Building but I think the Opera House wins on aesthetic grounds. It’s a truly cool building. UNESCO seems to agree.
I got back to the hotel room shortly after Barb. I was interested to see a little pirate ship-looking craft sailing near the Opera House. It seemed like there was always something interesting to watch in the harbor.
We rested a bit before getting ready for dinner, our 6pm reservation for Mr. Wong, the top Chinese restaurant in town and one that had been recommended by literally everyone we asked. Before heading to the restaurant, we headed up to the lounge for a drink and to check their offerings. They had fresh oysters, dumplings, wings, pork on a bao bun and other goodies. We really didn’t need to go anywhere else. We sampled a few of the items then headed out to dinner.
Mr. Wong’s is a Sydney institution, tucked into an alley a few blocks from our hotel. We were guided to our table in the noisy restaurant and were seated very close to two tables of four loud Australian couples. I tried to study up on the menu and was worried about what Barb would find to her liking. Sure enough, it was a challenge to settle on a couple of dishes. I knew I wanted to try the Crispy Fried Balmain Bugs, a well-recommended dish of lobster-like meaty creatures. Barb decided on a stir fried duo of rice vermicelli and glass noodles with king crab, bean sprouts and tobiko (flying fish roe). The waiter, who was very hard to hear in the noisy restaurant, really wanted us to order more food but we decided to go with these two dishes to start, and a glass of wine for me.
Barb actually liked the noodle dish, or at least the noodle parts of it. She tried one bite of the fried bugs and left the rest to me. It turned out the one chunk she tried was not well cooked but I didn’t figure that out until all the rest were gone. Oh well. We enjoyed what we had but we didn’t do Mr. Wong justice. The two tables next to us had dish after dish of interesting things but far too much food for the two of us.
We checked out and made it back to the room by 7:30pm. I went up to the lounge for some bourbon while Barb settled in for the evening. We are not ones for the nightlife.
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