The Manly Ferry, and on to Parramatta

We arrived in Sydney at around midnight on Monday, happy to arrive safe and sound and finally get to bed to rest our weary bones.  The hotel is ideally placed just across the road from buses and Central Station, the  largest and busiest railway station in New South Wales.   So we got ourselves an Opal Card each and started exploring.  A few stops down the line, and we were at Circular Quay.

 Rendezvous Hotel

Central Station

Having a ride on the Manly Ferry was high on our list of things to do.  There they were, all yellow and pudgy just as we had imagined them, not at all like the sleek fast ferries docked beside them.  We climbed aboard, and headed over to Manly.

The Manly Ferry

We passed by the famous Sydney Opera House.

30 minutes later, we arrived at Manly Wharf

The Corso, Manly

Manly Beach was perfect – golden sand and warm sun.  We sat in the sunshine watching the world go by, plus the joggers, the dog walkers, the young Mum’s with strollers, and all those tourists taking selfies.

 Manly Beach

After lunch, on our walk back to the ferry terminal, we came across a whole lot of Sulphur crested cockatoos, looks like they were sharing lunch with the young woman sitting in the park.

As we approached the Sydney skyline we pondered what to do with the rest of the day.  Why not take another ferry ride?

So we did – going in another direction across the harbour, this time to Parramatta.

Evonne Goolagong ferry took us to Parramatta

This was quite a different, longer trip, which had plenty of stops along the way, and the latter part of the journey took us up the Parramatta River, where we saw  pelican happily swimming by.  It was rather like being in tropics, with mangroves lining the river banks.

On the Parramatta River

Back on board for our return trip, we had to take the obligatory selfie, just like any self respecting tourist.  This isn’t easy to do with an ordinary camera, I can tell you!

Arriving back at the wharf at 5.00pm, we joined up with all the workers hurrying home as we boarded the train back to our station.  We can’t fault the public transport here in Sydney, and especially the Opal Cards.  With a daily cap of $15.80 on our adult cards, (we didn’t qualify for a concession card as we are not residents here) about half of our travel was free.

We would like to acknowledge Paul and his beloved late wife Elaine, who kept us entertained blogging about their adventures on The Manly Ferry Blog at http://nbthemanlyferry.blogspot.com/.  Paul is having health issues and we wish him all the best, and want him to know that these two Kiwis have finally ridden a real life Manly Ferry.

PS:  Our computer is misbehaving and we are having trouble posting this blog - hope all will be resolved soon.