Good old Manly

After a busy morning of flat hunting and job searching, we thought we deserved a bit of a rest. Trouble was, I wanted a boat trip and Julie wanted the beach. As my Mum always says, couples must always compromise. So we went for a boat trip to the beach!

We took the, apparently, famous Manly Ferry to... er... Manly. The so called surfer's paradise. The boat trip leaves from the centre of town form a Marseille-esque port past THE bridge and THE opera house. Under the clear Pacific sky and the warm breeze, we had a feast on the magnificent views of the high cliffs and the naughty yachts whose sole aim was to catch our wake. Despite waiting patiently, camera in hand, none of them capsized. Didums. The video bellow will show how horrible the weather is over here ... Just click on the play sign...

Manly is a coastal town about 30 minutes ferry ride out of Sydney. It can only be describbed as being a tacky resort which by all rights should be twinned with Brighton Pier (Steph and Emm, you know it's true). The town leaves you with little option but to drive you through 'The Corso'. The Corso is a 500m stretch of gauntlette running through tacky shops and even tackier backpackers. Restaurants in The Corso know you won't come back so sell what we consider to be a combination of wholly unacceptable and rancid food products and equally offensive drinks at ungodly prices. To reward you, at the end of The Corso is the beach. The beach can only be describbed as a forgetful stretch of unimpressive coast filled to the brim with unimpressive tourists. While Phil was filled with dispair and disgust, Julie took charge and bought fruit juices and frogmarched him onto the nearest bus and off we went. A short ride up the coast delivered us to Curl Curl Beach.

Curl Curl Beach is a long stretch of orange coloured sand with thundering waves. Coming from the tide-less island of Corsica, I din't find the waves particularly inviting, but my fearless wife dove right in. Afraid of looking like a 'winging pom', I ran at speed towards the waves and with renewed bravery, I jumped into the shallow abyss (oxymoron?). My moment of glory, however, proved to be short-lived. I anticipated the water to be warm like Callum's bath. It came as somewhat of a surpise when my big toe entered the sea that it almost fell off with frostbite. To my profound horror, the water was ice-cold. Unfortuantely, my momentum carried me forward and I fell with an ungainly and most un-manlike scream into water, limbs thrashing. Like a big hairy dog afraid of the water, I quickly scrambled out the sea. Not an easy task when the clutches of the waves refused to let me go. So instead, from the warmth and safety of the sand, I took this film of my mermaidesque Julie swimming in the Pacific.




I must now go and find something healthy to eat (youth hostel, public transport and now 'healthy' ... will it never end? What is next? making friends with a soap-dodging, vegetarian, back-packing, philosophying bloomin hippie student?), so I hand over the proverbial plume to Ju...



Bonjour family and friends,
I don't know if Philip made it clear enough, but the weather here is... Fan-Tas-Tic. Imagine the sunniest of your summer days, the one where they are no clouds in the sky, it's very warm, but not ridiculously hot and the sun is shining. Well, this is the way it's been here since we set foot in this beautiful country. We must touch wood though, because a waitress told us that this is the warmest it's been all summer. Let's hope it lasts!




So, anyway, we came back from the beach, and went shopping for something to cook for dinner. We were quite surprised with our first visit to the supermarket. The prices are the equivalent to Waitrose or Monoprix (depending in which country you live in) but the quality was the equivalent to Lidl (no matter where you live). We ended up with healthy stuff to make a salad and it cost us over £10. Ouch! We might get back to eating out (lots of junk food places, and sushi places). But, if we want any chance to look anything like the beautiful looking Australian dudes and dudettes, we should probably stick to the salads. What was also surprising at the supermarket (apart from its name: Woolworths!) was the provenance of the kiwis. You'll never guess... Italy! The world is seriously wrong sometimes.

We made the salad in the communal kitchen of the youth hostel (nice enough, full of German and French backpackers typing away on their laptops) and took our meal upstairs on the rooftop. Niiiice! That was 99% great. The 1% missing is for the hoards of bats flying above us. Not niiiiice! And for dessert: a peach in the stretta! Check out the photos.







And that's about it for the day. Just one more general comment: we fell in love with Australia, the Australians are friendly and the weather is gorgeous, but what's really disappointing is the distinct lack of banana pancakes, koalas and kangourous. Aren't they supposed to run accross the streets? And Kylie? Haven't met her yet! (However, saw an advert for an Olivia Newton-John concert!).

Thank you for reading us, don't hesistate to leave us some comments, we'll love to hear from you.
We miss you all very much,
Ju and Phil

PS: Papa, j'espere que tu vas vite te retablir. Je pense tres fort a toi.