Travel Biography - Week 94.

Sydney so far.

I have narrated the earlier days after arriving in Sydney, Australia's largest city. After spending two days and a night at the Blue Mountains National Park, I returned to the City Hostel. At Darling Harbour, I bumped into two Chinese students who were backpacking Australia, whom I had already met in Brisbane. After they had gone, I took a ferry from the Circular Harbour to Manly, a coastal town north of the city and built on a peninsula connecting North Head Sanctuary with the mainland. Hence, Manly has two beaches, one on each side of the land strip.

Last week, due to a lack of foresight, the corresponding photos of Manly weren't ready for inclusion. Therefore, in this week's blog, I have included them along with those of the next venue.

The Corso, Manly Town Centre. From Week 93.

Manly Beach. Note how we dressed, it wasn't warm!

Manly Cove, on the opposite side of Manly Beach.

On my way up to the cliff walk at North Head.

North Head Cliffs.

Sydney is blessed by having natural beauty surrounding it. The Blue Mountains National Park is one of them. It's sixty miles or 100 km west inland, However, there is another National Park, the Kuringgai Chase National Park. To the east of Kuringgai, a long, slender peninsula stretches north/south parallel to, and east of an inlet, the Pittwater inlet penetrating south for 13 km or eight miles, separating the two landmasses. The slender peninsula consists of two beaches, the oddly-named Station Beach facing west towards the inlet, and Palm Beach, facing east towards the ocean. Both Palm Beach and Station Beach terminate with the forested mound at its northern end, Barrenjoey Head with its lighthouse, around 27 miles or 43 km north of Sydney Circular Quay, and accessible by bus all the way, or part bus part ferry, the latter was the route I used to arrive there. Palm Beach, with its boathouse made famous by the TV crew, was the setting for the teatime soap, Home and Away.

A Day Trip to Palm Beach.

I was fortunate to pick a warm, sunny day to get to Palm Beach. This meant, for once, I could go dressed in a singlet for a top, the same way I dressed for Singapore and Cairns. After breakfast, I made my way to the Quay quickly by boarding the City Line train from the Sydney Central through platform, to the Quay Station in readiness to board the ferry to the other side of the Harbour. From here, it wasn't difficult to find the appropriate bus stop for Palm Beach.

The bus ride took about an hour. From the terminal bus stop, it was a short walk to get to the base of the peninsula with the ocean lapping gently at Palm Beach. At the other end of the sandy strip, Barrenjoey Head terminated the sandbank.

Both the geography and the geology of this peninsula, as I walked along, have made me wonder whether Barrenjoey Head was once an isolated island off the coast of the mainland before the ocean deposited sand to eventually form a land bridge between the island and the mainland. Such geological phenomena have always intrigued me. A shorter and wider sandbank formation looked to have also occurred where Manly now thrives, connecting the one-time island of North Head to the mainland, long before any settlement was founded on it.

This sandbank formation isn't unique to Australia. More recently, I took my wife Alex to Llandudno in North Wales, UK. The main geological feature, other than its two beaches, is the Great Orme, a huge limestone mound offering picturesque views of the town with Little Orme to the east, and even the Isle of Man on a clear day, over 60 miles or 100 km across the Irish Sea from its summit. The whole town of Llandudno is built on the short, squat sandbank joining Great Orme to the mainland. But this I know, the Great Orme was once an island off the coast of Wales. It could be difficult to imagine where traffic now winds its way along the busy streets of the town, marine life once thrived beneath the waves which lapped between the two separate landmasses.

Palm Beach peninsula seen from Barrenjoey Head.

At Palm Beach. Behind me is the southern mainland.

Palm Beach. Looking north towards Barrenjoey H.

Barrenjoey Lighthouse.

And that was how Palm Beach, north of Sydney appeared. The slenderness of the peninsula wasn't so apparent from the summit of Barrenjoey Head. Rather, from that level, it looked a lot shorter and wider. As I strolled along Palm Beach itself, I was able to recognise the scenery where the cast of Home and Away was filmed, especially when I became a fan of the soap during its early nineties heyday. I then found the start of a trail which ascended the mound on the northern end of the sandbank. From where the lighthouse was situated, lovely views were enjoyed.

I spent a good few hours at Palm Beach before boarding the bus to the ferry. This included strolling along Station Beach (which I formerly referred to as Pittwater Beach). It was narrower, looked shabbier and more weed-strawn than the sandy strip on the other side. Yet, to me, it was equally intriguing. Unlike the main beach, this one boasted a boat jetty and boathouse which featured a cafe - a familiar site to all soap fans. When not filming, the cafe was open to the public, and although there was hardly anyone around, save the assistant, I still enjoyed a coffee as I sat and absorbed the experience.

And here was something I found rather surprising. That was the scarcity of people. Indeed, I did see a few souls strolling around, even a lone fisherman on the jetty during the early evening, not long before the sun was due to set. Yet, this location was made famous, not only in Australia, but in the UK, and perhaps Europe and America as well. (When I was in France in 1989 with a friend, we stopped at a cafe with a television showing the rival teatime soap, Neighbours, with French subtitles. Perhaps Home and Away had the same viewing range?) Hence, when I arrived at Palm Beach, I was expecting crowds of tourists to populate the area, especially in escorted groups, admiring the site of the filming. Instead, it was nothing of the kind. I just about had the peninsula to myself.

The walk also allowed me to see how the Aussies lived in rural or suburban environments. At the southern end of the peninsula was a housing estate. Each property was fully detached and set in its own gardens, and each house looked slightly different from its neighbour. The housing estate looked very much like what I saw in California, a middle-class residential estate, as according to one travel documentary I watched on YouTube, Aussies have a dislike for apartment blocks.

I thought how wonderful it must be to live in such an area, right on the coast, yet, on ground high enough not to be threatened by high tides, and also on firm rock that hardly ever erodes, even in a storm. It was a beautiful place to live, always within easy reach of the beach. On the downside, the car is essential for getting about. Palm Beach is on a remote section of the coast, and although there were frequent buses to the city, there was no railway line nearby, hence no station for commuting. And just a ferry sailing from Station Beach is Kuringgai Chase National Park, itself a large peninsula covered in what looked to be forest and with isolated beaches sloping into Pittwater Inlet. Although I could see this wild area from the summit of Barrenjoey Head, there were no plans to visit the Park, even if I might have had a desire to hike along the trails.

First of all, Kuringgai Chase N.P. is huge, around 150 square km, or 58 sq. miles. Some of its trails were actually roads used by vehicles, and what were designated walking tracks were paths wide enough to give access to a vehicle, cutting through bushland rather than a proper forest as was with the trails cutting through Blue Mountains, Byron Bay, and Whitsunday Island. I had no real desire to hike through a track with a high risk of a car horn beeping from behind!

Looking South along Station Beach at Pittwater.

The Boathouse and Jetty at Station Beach. 

The Boathouse seen from the Jetty.

Barrenjoey Head seen from Station Beach.

A lone fisherman at Palm Beach.

Back to the City.

When evening arrived, I boarded the bus back into town. I could have remained on the bus until it pulled outside Central Station, but that would have been a long, monotonous journey. Instead, I took the same route in reverse as the outgoing journey. I alighted at the ferry terminal and boarded a boat for the sailing across the water to arrive at Circular Quay. From there, at the harbour station, I didn't have to wait long for a train to whisk me underground back to Sydney Central after a few other stops along the way.

For the next two or three days, I remained in the city. Although, to me, it didn't hold a candle to Cairns, Port Douglas, or the Great Barrier Reef, there were plenty of things to see in the city itself. I will go into detail about city life next week before concluding the whole journey on the Indo-Pacific Highway from Cairns to Sydney. After that, the rather extraordinary trans-Pacific flight from Sydney International to Los Angeles when I literally go back in time!

But all that is still yet to come. Meanwhile, after settling down in my dormitory, there is grocery shopping still to be done. This was normal. Usually, I shop in the evenings, buying groceries for both the evening meal and the following morning's breakfast. I also find time to attend the hostel launderette, although this could be at any time of the day. There is, however, one regret. That is, I wished that I stayed in Australia a lot longer, like some of the other backpackers who are on a gap year. I have come across these people throughout the entire stay. Most were college students, but unlike me, they weren't permanently employed, and in general, they were still living at home. Looking back, had I not flown the nest, chances were that I could have spent a year just travelling, perhaps taking in South Africa, possibly making a cross-border journey into Zimbabwe to visit the Victoria Falls, then spending several months in Australia and New Zealand, and maybe set foot in South America or Mexico before ending in the States.

Wishful thinking.

Or was it really? Had I come from a wealthy family, indeed, all that might have been within my realm. Were these long-stay backpackers from wealthy families? Not necessarily. At Sydney Hostel Reception, there was a desk for those looking for temporary work. Fruit picking? No, thank you. From what I have heard, one has to work hard and fast to keep up with an unrealistic schedule. A round peg in a square hole. Instead, I have learned to be grateful for what I already experienced, and believe me, it was a wonderful privilege.

And there is still more to come.

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Next Week: A look at city life before take-off to California.