Sydney Harbor: Manly Ferry by day and by night

Sydney Harbor, also referred to as Port Jackson, contains 240 Kilometers(149 Miles) of shoreline and 54 square Kilometers(33 miles) of water. It is the site of the original Australian settlement, Sydney, now the largest city in Australia and my place of residence for the next few months.


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There is no better way to introduce you to the city of Sydney than by starting with the harbor in which it sprawls from. Many ferries run out of the city from Circular Quay to various points throughout the harbor.

The Manly Ferry is the most famous of all the Sydney ferries. This 30 minutes ride takes you across the middle of the harbor right past fort Denison, the heads of the harbor (where the ocean water enters), and the iconic Sydney Opera House.

Opera House

Fort Denison

Despite Manly Beach, one of the most touristy beaches(second only to Bondi), the surrounding trails and beaches are well worth the ferry ride.

Manly Beach

Shelly Beach

On a nice sunny day, I took the Blue Fish Track trail with my German friend Katja. There was some great views of the beach and the ocean, but lots of spiders!!

Definitely the best time to take the Manly Ferry back to Circular Quay is at night. It's great coming into the neon lit city from the harbor.

Ferry docking at Manly

Birds followed the ferry as we rode toward the city, following us past the Opera House and back to Circular Quay:

Adelaide: the end of the road trip

The final haul to Adelaide was the closest I've gotten so far to the "outback." The landscape transformed, dramatically after the great ocean road: gum trees disappeared, the the landscape flattened out and the soil turned red.

The towns became far and in-between. We were lucky enough to bump into the 2003 best medium town winner, Kingston though it wasn't much of a town at all, just a gas station and a few shops.

We stopped for lunch at "the heart of the Coorong" in Salt Creek. It was was truly an outback town. Beside the restaurant/gas station flew the two official Australian flags:

 

Salt creek is aptly named because it has pools of salty water all around. We stopped by a few after lunch to take photos:

We stopped for gas in Callington, a suburb of Adelaide before heading into the city.

Finally we were at our destination, the city of churches - Adelaide.


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Adelaide was an interesting city in its architecture; almost like a wild west town but with Palm trees, no guns and friendly people. We spent little time in the city and instead traveled to the nearby beach where we watched the sun go down and said our goodbyes.

 

As I sat in the sand dunes overlooking the beach and the sun began to set, I reflected on my journey, all that I saw on this ten day trip (February 14th - 24th), all that happened; it was truly an experience and I was sad to be in the dusk of this adventure. The sunset over the crest of the oceans horizons was one of my last experiences on this road trip, and one of the most rememberable. It was sad to say goodbye to my traveling comrades, but the vast expanse that laid before me as the sun dropped below the sea, gave me hope and excitement for the future horizons and sunsets to come.