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Welcome to the first step of our adventures! A week of exploring Sydney on foot was on the books (sadly the opera house doesn’t sing but we made that up as we went). An appetizer for our bigger travels, it was a good way to get the time change adjusted to as well as saved us some coin on travel rather than flying direct into Auckland. So let’s get to the fun and fishy details.
The flight was fantastic, both of us are accustomed to North American Airlines and the….how to say it nicely….”minimal” service that goes with it. Quantas was a reminder that you can enjoy long flights. Full service meals, many snacks, and in flight comfort package of pillows, blankets etc. heck you even get a little toothbrush and paste. Truly Five stars, I (Krystal) have been to 10+ countries and needless to say, I highly recommend it!
We pushed ourselves to stay up as long as possible and sleep on Australia time to alleviate the jet lag which worked pretty well (For Krystal anyway, Alex is still getting the hang of sleeping on planes) and landed safe and sound at 6:30 AM feeling 15h flying like it was 5.
With the early start to the day and check in at 3:00 for the AirBnb we decided to take our time using transit and headed to manly beach. A quick train ride from the airport to the ferry and we had our toes in the Aussie sands. Our accommodation for the week was a lovely house up on the hill on bangaroo street (love the Aussie names for things) a decent hour hike to the beach but reasonable for hopping the bus down. The house was large, open and bright which was perfect after a long days march or a quiet day in.
Pro tip: To help fight jet lag, figure out the country's local time you are going to and try to sleep on the plane when you would naturally be sleeping there.
The transit system in Sydney was awesome, even though the first few days we spent walking everywhere - it was only an hour's walk from the Airbnb to the beach. But the Ferry to get into down was the best ride we took for sure. Called the MFF (Manly Fast Ferry) it was a quick ride over with awesome views of the Sydney Bridge and the Opera House. (Ahhhh)
Sydney Opera House - Didn’t go “Ahhhh” but was delightful nonetheless.
The day in Sydney was just that, a full day at 27km of walking later, but I wouldn’t have changed anything about it. Taking the ferry in gave you a really cool view of the cityscape as we also took it back in the evening, which I think was the best part. The Opera house, as to be expected, is busy but honestly just on the main stairs. If you walked around to the front of it the people became less and less. We made it a point to do the “Ahhhhh” every time we saw the Ophra house on the trip, which made for a good laugh.
From there we ventured into the botanical gardens and scouted somewhere I could do photos at sunset. (worth it) The gardens alone were worth the trip, they have so many diverse and unique plants and flowers that I’ve never seen before, I could literally start an album on my phone of flower photos I took.
The gardens are big, but there is a beautiful footpath around and many different ways to take, you truly feel like you are in a jungle and outside of the “city life” I can see why so many business people come there for their lunch breaks, it’s a little slice of paradise. You could easily spend half a day taking your time, walking around the gardens and just taking everything in, but with only one day in the city thanks to the rain, we had a lot of ground to cover.
They have public water foundations everywhere in the gardens to drink from, most work, and some are aggressive.. I just wanted a drink, needless to say, that didn't happen. Ha.
P. Sherman 42 Waliby Way Sydney
Yup, we google it, and it gave us an address, so of course we set out to find the dentist's office and meet Flo and the clan. After a solid 20 minute walk from the botanical gardens, we were lost.. It's in a very confusing 7+ layer mall that just keeps going around in circles. Lied to by Google, you will discover that no such place actually exists. It is a fake entry on Google, but we had high hopes that maybe someone had capitalized on the amazing marketing opportunity. We weren’t the first to set out on this adventure and I know we won't be the last.
After escaping the mall, we headed down to Chinatown to see what we could see, stopping at St Mary's Church and the War Monument along the way. One thing that we had noticed and weren’t really prepared for in Aussie land was how expensive food was. I’ll touch on that a bit more below, but it was a welcomed site when we reached Chinatown and could get a boba for $5 instead of the $12 everywhere else.
We wrapped up our day in Sydney by watching the sunset at the Opera house (Ahhh), we had some pretty thick clouds so it wasn’t much of a sunset, but still STUNNING to see at night! It was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole day. Especially the ferry ride home in the evening, seeing the whole city lit up!
Beach Day in Manly - Fish are friends, not food.
Just because fish are friends, doesn’t mean humans are! Ha! On our first “beach day” we set out to soak up some sun and swim in the ocean. However, the wind had other plans for that. After an hour's walk down from the Airbnb we reached a wind tunnel which was Manly Beach, and with the wind brought the bluebottle jellies. Needless to say, our beach day didn’t last long, we walked around to a neighboring beach - Shelly Beach, which was less windy but surprisingly busy for a Wednesday. Thus, our first beach day ended with no swimming but a bit of sun and some amazing fish and chips!
Everything is very accessible by foot once you hit Manly Beach, our second beach day we decided to catch the bus down, their bus system works via a transit card “Opal” which you top up when needed and tap on and tap off. The fair changed depending on the distance that you go. From the Airport to the Ferry terminal it was about $20 each, the ferry across to Manly was about $8 each and then the bus ride from the Airbnb about $3 each. If you were doing it every day, it might make more sense to rent a car or an Uber but for the most part, transit is cheap and efficient.
Our second “beach day” was right out of a movie. Jumped the bus down to the beach, it was supposed to be 30+ out, so after a few days of rain we figured it would be perfect. When we got down there though, no one was in the water, which seemed strange and then we noticed the shark signs. Clearly Bruce and his buddies wanted to come hang out for a beach day too. Ha! We could see down the way that people were still swimming at Shelly Beach, so we decided to walk down there to catch some sun and ocean time.
Not 5 minutes after we got there, the whistles started blowing, and they rushed everyone out of the water. Alas, we decided to just find a little spot of beach and soak up some sun. The funny thing about Aus, is about 20 mins after rushing everyone out, people jumped right back in and resumed their water sports. Which we found out later, is because the “Shark Sitings” are typically from tagged sharks a long way off the coast, but once one is spotted they have to clear everyone out. Lessons learned. We didn’t end up getting to swim in Aussie oceans, but I have no doubt that will change once we hit New Zealand. I did, however, end up making some friends and getting in some beach volleyball later in the evening, which was nice to play some 2s with some of the locals!
Exploring Sydney on Foot
To sum up our short stay in Sydney, do you need a car? Nope, if you are looking for a quick stay in Sydney, and don’t mind walking or taking transit then it is for sure doable. We put in a lot of km’s in a week - 74.5km to be exact. But that was beach days, a little waterfall hike and then 27km when we spent a day in the city. Some could have been shaved off with transit if you didn’t want to walk as much.
Lesson Learned: Our food budget definitely took a hit this first week. We are by no means throwing money at wagyu or sushi but got a bit beat up even with the price of groceries. A rotisserie chicken was $20!!! We are chalking this up to the location. Being more of a beach/vacation town in Manly, there isn't as much in the way of budget grocers. Fortunately, we found an IGA that was semi reasonable and got us through the week.
Gear Highlight: The saguaro toe shoes we bought have been an absolute win. Lightweight and flexible, we were comfy walking long distances (and we got our km count in) both around the town and in the bush tracks near our airbnb. The soft soles mean that you do have to be a bit careful of bigger rocks but are otherwise fantastic for hoofing around.
I’m thankful we didn’t skip Sydney or only did 2-3 days, it was worth it to adapt to the time change and see a new beautiful place. The beaches are stunning, the ocean is semi warm and the adventures are endless.
The next country we are off to is New Zealand, stay tuned for more friends!
Xo Krystal