Day 5 - Spit to Manly walk

When we first arrived in Sydney, one of the things we decided to do was a 6-7 mile hike along the Manly Scenic Walkway. We would take a 30 min bus ride to the Spit bridge and then start our hike which would take us along the coastline, into the Australian National Forest, and end at Manly Beach, where we would spend the afternoon relaxing. Sounds just about perfect, doesn't it? We were going to meet 2 other couples at 8 am and be on our way.

Unfortunately, that morning I woke up and just felt terrible. I'm not exactly sure what the deal was...I just didn't feel right. Jared thinks with the TON of walking we did every day, all day that I had just worn myself out and was fatigued. I think he may have been right. So we told our friends to head on with out us (I was soooo bummed!) and I went back to sleep for about another hour and a half.

I did feel better after a little more sleep, just not 100%. Jared and I decided to take the ferry straight to Manly, and do the hike the opposite way and then turn back when we ran into them.

We hiked along the beach, through neighborhoods, through forest areas,saw a ton of GIANT lizards,hiked up stairs like these forEVER,and were finally rewarded with incredible views of the harbor.

After going for almost 2 hours we still hadn't run across our friends (and it should have only taken 3 hours total!). We had planned on meeting them back at the beach at noon, so we decided we'd better turn around. But turning around and hiking the exact same thing didn't sound fun so we found our way off the trail and ended up at some park that had a huge open field and an ice cream truck. Our hope was to find a bus stop and catch the bus back to the beach, but this park was very secluded and there was nothing in sight! Jared approached an older gentleman who was getting ice cream with his grandson and asked him if he knew where a bus stop was. He didn't, but he offered us a ride! Even better! We were just going to have him drop us off at the first bus stop we saw but he drove us all the way back to Manly Beach! What a nice man!

Manly Beach was nice, but crowded. It was a Saturday, after all. We found a spot and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, playing in the water (Jared bought a cheap boogie board so he would have something to play with), walking around the street markets they had in the area, and enjoying the fabulous weather. Oh, and our friends found us about 20 mins after we got the the beach...we're still not sure how we didn't run into them!They also happened to be opening the first Ben & Jerry's that day and we were handed about a ba-zillion coupons/fliers for it! And they were giving out free ice cream! We almost stopped until we saw the line; so not worth it! So we settled for our picture in front of the van!We got back to our hotel around 5:30 and after getting ready decided to try out a pizza place that had been recommended. The pizza was alright, but the service was terrible and the restaurant was hot, stuffy and kind of stinky! Then we went to Darling Harbor to catch the end of their tree lighting festival. They had this humongous tree (no actual tree involved, however. Just a TON of wires and lights!). It was soooo crowded, but fun to hang out there for awhile.