Or how a couple of wrong turns can lead to a very long day. Last week, Lisa and I split a breakfast sandwich from the coffee shop on the pier, bacon and egg roll, crispy bacon, sweet chili and a large cafe mocha for take away. By the time I knew it, it was 10 am and Lisa and on her way to meetings followed by another fancy business lunch, and then more meetings. Since I sailed the day before, I felt I wanted to get a hike in. To this point, most of my hiking has been around the city streets, except when I went to Watson’s bay. So I decided I wanted to do a bush walk that Lisa’s friend and manager, Michelle had mentioned. What is a bush walk? I guess the best definition is a nature walk. Sometimes the paths may be well-defined and other times left to a good deal of interpretation.
The bush walk that Michelle had mentioned was from the Spit Bridge (yes, the bridge that Spit Road goes across) to Manly. The walk is around 9 km and is estimated to take 3 or 5 hours depending on side trips off the main walk. It is also called the Manly Scenic Walk.
So first I had to find out what the trail actually went and eventually found the Wild Walks web site that had it pretty well documented via PDF. If I had been brighter, I might have printed it out and taken it with me and saved me from one of my wrong turns.
Alas, it didn’t tell me how to get to Spit Bridge, so I went to the the Sydney Transportation tool web site: 131500. Taking a bus is a bit different from taking a train. When you take a train, it has a number of stops and it will stop at each and every one of those stops. The conductor doesn’t know if anyone will get off of the train at a given stop or if anyone will get on. Additionally, every stop is a pretty major infrastructure investment so when you arrive at a stop you will see signs as to which stop it is. Furthermore, most trains have some type of display or CRT system that lets you know where you are in the list of stops. Buses in Sydney, from my limited experience, lack all of these things. So if you don’t know what the place you are travelling to looks like from the window of a moving car or bus, then how do you know you are suppose to push the red button to tell the driver you would like to get off of the bus at this stop? In the end, you have to ask the bus driver. If you don’t speak the language used in that local, then you most likely will try and communicate with another passenger or perhaps try and count the bus stop signs along the way. So… although Sydney is place where the English language is most common, it turned out that my bus driver wasn’t very proud of his English or was just very shy or was a mute, because I couldn’t get him to say a word. At least I got him to nod his head when I asked him if the next stop on Spit rd was coming up.
I hopped off the bus and there was a large commuter parking lot area. I walked to the east end 
and didn’t see any signs for a bush walk, so I turned and walked to the west end and found some signs for a bush walk, but none of the mentioned anything about Manley. At that point, something didn’t feel right. But instead of listening to this voice, I started on the bush walk.
The trail was very overgrown, clue number two, or deux, if you like. By overgrown, I mean there were plants touching you every step of the way. It is times like this that you think back to you visit to the Taronga Zoo last month and how Australia has more poisonous snakes than anyplace else on our planet. Beauty Point and Foreshore Walk were starting to feel more like Where the Wild Things Are. About an hour into the hike, the path hit a wall which on the other side was a mansion being remodeled. End of the bush walk.
Was it the end? Or more information that I wasn’t on the right bush walk. So I, like anyone on a popular television game show, gave a call out to my love one, Lisa. Lucky for me, she was in a team meeting and could announce to them all that her significant other got off a bus to do a bush walk and was lost. Alas, I didn’t feel lost, it was just dawning on me that maybe Manley was on the other side of the Spit bridge and I had gotten a bit turned around from the bus drive. Eventually one of Lisa co-workers was able to garner enough info to confirm that I was indeed on the wrong side of the bridge and I promptly started my hike back, but instead of testing my snake proof sandals again, I decided to go thru the rich suburbs of Mossman Bay and do a little house shopping.
I crossed the Bridge and found the true Manley Scenic Walk and started my way. Here and some snaps and captions:
Looking from the trail across to the Spit Bridge. If you live in Manley, to go anywhere you either take a water taxi, a ferry, or drive across the bridge. That’s all fine and good until there is a boat of suitable size that causes the bridge to “open up” to be let through and you get to wait in your car wondering why they couldn’t build a bigger bridge or why didn’t you realize this would one day be a pain.
Depending on low tide and high tide, the scenic walk can change a bit, such as along this beach at low tide.
Not sure if I mentioned this, maybe Lisa’s daughter Alexandra and Eric did, but if you hate stairs, then you really are going to have plenty of opportunities to get over you rage in Sydney. On this bush trail and others, seeing stairs is both a good and bad thing. The bad this is that you are going to have to go up another set of stairs and on one of these scenic bush walks, the steps will have shifted, set, moved and shifted again, so the steps are never truly flat or even. On the good side, it means someone has come this way before and spent enough time to carve out some steps or brought some pre-carved steps in and buried them. Yeah for steps!
When you are on a trail, and are getting tired, and you see a sign that says only 500 meters off the main path, is a lighthouse, you will most likely want to see the lighthouse and will take the trail. What the narrow slate of wood with engraved lettering didn’t tell you is that the 500 meters is at times a steep incline and since its not part of the main trail, less work is done to maintain it. Word.
The ‘gap’ and two ferries dance.
“Somewhere down there is reef beach, and if you hadn’t walked several thousand kilometers on the wrong bush walk you might go down there.”
A real nice view of Manley Bay… for your car, since you get to park on the roof of your million dollar home. A public pool in Manley where it is doubtful that a Shark will get in and eat your child. I don’t know if there are any baby eating Dingos in Manley.
A wild parrot hanging out in Manley. I can understand why. Manley feels like a well designed city. Along the bay, is a wide sidewalk that fills up with people in the late afternoon for walks, exercising, and general luffing.
I love reading your BLOG….. keep it up… It reminds me why I loved Sydney so much…