Manly

Last Sunday, I took the ferry over to Manly with my new friends Christina and Holly. We met up with their friend Fran, who is also American.

Manly is a really cute little town that has beautiful beaches, located on the north shore of Sydney.

The town has a peninsula called North Head, which has a military base and Sydney Harbour National Park. Parts of it are beaches, but most of it is hiking with overlooks above cliffs, looking into the Ocean. We walked around this area for about 5 hours!

This is the beginning part of our hike. You can see the cliffs in the distance in these photos.

Here's Tourist Ari at her best.

There are pretty big lizards all over the trail area where we were walking.

Really nicely built trails through this area. We may have gotten lost at one point in the raging mid-day sun, but luckily found our way back to a water fountain!

Here's the view of Sydney from Manly. It was a hot day, but pretty cloudy in some areas.

Here are some good pics of the Manly cliffs.

An old fort on the trail.

Hanging out on the edge.

There is a school of management in Manly that is a beautiful old seminary - St. Patrick's. We weren't able to go inside, all the doors were locked. HOWEVER, there was a function happening in one of the rooms and we snuck in to borrow some cheese for a snack :)

This church is part of the seminary, and where Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban married.

Wild chickens!!

Collins Beach, which you have to hike into. Very cute, secluded area.

The ferry ride home! Beautiful end to a beautiful day.

Hunger Games

Thank god they have movie theaters in Australia! I saw The Hunger Games last night and was very pleased a few things that were left out.

The actor Liam Hemsworth who plays Gale is Australian, so thought it was only appropriate to post about it. If only I could meet up with him somehow while I'm here...

Credit: Someecards. Thanks, Jacinda for sending this awesome one to me!

Bondi to Coogee Beach Walk

Yesterday, Nancy and I met at Bondi Beach. We did a meditation course (randomly) and got a bite to eat, then she took me on this wonderful beach / clifftop walk to her home beach in Coogee. Her nanny family lives in Randwick, which is right by Coogee.

This walk took about 3 hours or more and travels from beach to beach. It was a beautiful day, clear skies and super sunny!

This is me with Bondi beach in the background.

Here is the beginning of our walk, this walkway runs the whole way along the coast.

Awesome rock. The shape looks like a fish to me - specifically the scary deep water fish from Finding Nemo.

More cools rock...and Nancy.

Beautiful views along the way.

Notice the huge cemetery right by the ocean. I think it's the Waverley Cemetery.

Just casually practicing rugby by the ocean.

This was right by Clovelly Beach - really cute little area called Gordon's Bay.

Me and Nancy!!! Some sweet old man (and his dog) took this photo.

Hope this isn't too creepy, but had to take a pic. Beautiful place to get married, right by Coogee Beach on the clifftop!!

First Weekend in Sydney

Sydney was lucky to get a day of sun (albeit with some early morning showers) this past Sunday, after it rained all day on Saturday. Also, lucky for me, the jet lag that kept me in on Saturday passed - woohoo!

I decided to walk over the Harbour Bridge - which pedestrians, bicyclers, cars and trains travel each day from North Sydney into the city and, coincidentally, celebrated its 80 year anniversary today. Similar to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Harbour Bridge is considered a landmark in Australia. The GG is 74 years old and I'm thinking that the designers should have taken note from Australia - check out the very safe pedestrian side of the bridge. Like.

The view of Sydney and the harbour from the bridge is pretty cool.

I walked to the botanical gardens, which is a big park on the harbour by the Opera House with the 'Governor's House' and flower garden in the center. Here are some pretty flowers and the house:

The trees in the park were pretty awesome, they looked very tropical like trees I've seen in Hawaii and the Caribbean. I may have taken a lot of photos of these :)

Hidden in a corner, I found this fantastic little statue. Kind of reminds me of Mr. Tumnus from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

After walking around the gardens and Opera House a bit more, I met Nancy and her friend Christina (aka my new friend) for a free harbour cruise that they so genius-ly found. The idea of the cruise is to make money from passengers buying an all you can drink wrist band for $40, but we just got a free ride, some free beers from nice Germans and free snaggers (sausages) that the boat gave out. They were DELICIOUS! I forgot to mention the free meat pies I had last Thursday. Also delicious.

Not sure what I'm up to this week, but hope to get out to Manly next weekend. Stay tuned!