Manly, NSW

Click on each photo for an enlarged image.

To get an image of Sydney, picture a blank map. Draw a circle on the map, that’s Sydney. Now as if the circle were a pie, cut a large piece out of the pie, that place you cut out would be Sydney Harbor. Sydney Harbor is where the Sydney Harbor Bridge is (funny enough) as well as the Sydney Opera House. The town we live in is on the north side of the pie on a peninsula that has ocean beaches on one side and bay beaches on the other side. In some places the beaches are only about two blocks apart.

Manly is part of Sydney but is also outside of Sydney. Think sort of like Brooklyn is to New York or Berkeley is to San Francisco. Different jurisdictions but so very close culturally.

The “Corso”

The Corso is an open-air mall that extends about two blocks from the Manly Wharf on the bay side to Manly Beach on the ocean side. There are your usual suspects: restaurants, bars, surf shops, internet cafes, and tchochke shops. Oh, and the ice cream parlor pictured here.

The Manly Wharf

Taken on the bay side of the peninsula, the Wharf is in the left of the picture, the ferry can be seen heading into Sydney. You can see the shark netting on the beach although on the day I took the photo it was far too cold for swimming, notice how the couple in the foreground are bundled up. It is not common to see whitecaps in the bay like this; it was a very windy day in October (early spring).

Turning to the right and looking along the beach you can see Ocean World, an aquarium which has little to boast about except for an astounding shark tank. It has one of those tunnels through the shark tank where you can walk along, perfectly dry, and see the eight to ten sharks lazily swim overhead. The tank also has a large tortoise, manta rays with a wingspan larger than five feet, and sundry fish and smaller bottom-feeder sharks.

You can’t see it well but there is a several mile walk along the water from Ocean World extending to the left of the photo through all of the real estate you see in the picture.

Manly Beach looking south

Manly Beach is on the ocean side of the peninsula. If you look along the curve of the beach there is a footpath along the water’s edge that goes to the Shelly Beach. From Shelly Beach you can climb up the cliffs overlooking the ocean for a view out toward South America, I think. I keep looking but I haven’t seen anything out there yet.

In the far right is a pinkish building that is the Manly Surf Life Saving Club. These folks are part of a larger organization of Surf Life Saving Clubs that is responsible for keeping beaches safe as well as teaching people how to swim and about swimming safety. They are highly respected throughout Australia, but they are often seen with goofy red and yellow caps, as John wanted me to point out.

Manly Beach looking north

You can see other peninsulas in the distance going up the coast. Each peninsula has its own beaches. There is a town along the north called Curl Curl. The long pipe extending into the water is storm water drainage. There are signs all along the beach warning that they are not responsible for the cleanliness of the water for 24 hours after hard rains.

Manly Beach

This is my view when practicing Taekwon-Do on the beach.

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Last revised: October 2003