A 30 minute / $6 ferry ride from Sydney Harbour brings you gliding into Manly Wharf, with views of the harbour beach and coves. Just north of the city, Manly is a popular destination for locals and tourists alike, and manages to pull off classy-beach-resort and tat-toting-tourist trap simultaneously. The Jetcat service is slightly quicker and slightly more expensive, but the standard ferry ride is so enjoyable it hardly seems worth it. You can also drive to Manly, though it's out of you way as the road curves round to follow the bay, but the best way in my mind is to arrive and leave by water, for awesome views of the Sydney Harbour skyline as you depart and arrive back. Many accommodation options are available, from posh hotels to backpacker hostels, but the majority of people visit Manly for a day or half day trip from Sydney or further up the coast.
-**- The Beaches and Beyond -**-
The beaches in Manly are gorgeous, but too many tourists don't even find them, assuming the sandy stretch where the ferry comes in is all there is, and settling themselves there for the day. The main beach is in fact a 5 - 10 minute walk from the wharf, straight down the main street known as the Corso. This is reminiscent of Bondi - long, sandy, relatively crowded and swarming with beautiful bodies. However if you crave peace and quiet, there are numerous other coves within walking distance, many of which offer sheltered bays for safe swimming. A popular one is Shelley Beach - north of the main drag, along a short waterside path - but if you walk up to 15 minutes in any direction keeping near to the beach you will come across more.
There are some gorgeous coastal walks that leave from Manly, and we did an escorted one run by the National Parks Service ( http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/ ), that threaded up round the headland, through some bush and up to Curl Curl and Dee Why. From there you can walk further, up as far as Palm Beach (where they film Home and Away) but it's too far too walk in one go from Manly, so bussing it is advised.
-**- To See and Do -**-
Though we tend to treat it as a place to lounge in the sun or outside at a café while we people spot, Manly has a few attractions that involve neither of these places. On the harbour side you can find the Aquarium and Art Gallery and Museum. These are typical of beach resorts wanting to offer a little extra, but if you don't go expecting fantastic displays or internationally touring exhibitions you might enjoy them, as they're not too bad. Oceanworld ( http://www.oceanworld.com.au/generalinfo.htm ) is a favourite of fish-mad children, and offers several shows a day featuring their many dangerous and not so dangerous species.
Being based on the water, with an active harbour separate from the Ocean beach, Manly offers lots in the way of sailing and swimming and snorkelling etc. We spent an afternoon kayaking last week, heading out of the harbour to the deserted Stores Beach and Quarantine Beach which are beautiful and have a sand unlike any I've ever come across before, so silky and golden. The tour round takes you along the coast, past the inordinately expensive apartments that line the promenade and through a maze of anchored boats that scatter the water.
Over on the ocean side the waves are great for surfing, and a well respected and well established surf school offers lessons for beginners onwards ( http://www.manlysurfschool.com/ )
Manly is home to some interesting wildlife, and it's the kind of place where you stumble across it often quite by accident. To the left of the Wharf as you arrive into Manly there is a small coastal path that houses, along its way, the most adorable Fairy Penguins which live naturally in the wild in only a handful of places in the world. They come out to play around dusk and are the sweetest things ever.
The main tourism site - http://www.manlyweb.com.au - has details of these attractions and more.
-**- Events -**-
Manly's the kind of place that always has something going on, from food and wine festivals to beach side markets to the international Jazz Festival in October each year. While they're good for the obvious entertainment they bring, they also attract visitors, taking the level of noise and movement from 'bustling' to 'manic'. That said, we went to the Jazz Festival on a couple of the days, and enjoyed it despite the crowds. The quality of the performers was excellent, and the crowds well controlled and not overly boisterous. The local council's website lists details of upcoming events, and is worth checking prior to arriving to see if you can time your visit to coincide with something.
-**- Eating and Drinking -**-
Manly offers a wide range of places to eat, with the more expensive typically located in the hotels opposite the water on both sides. The Corso has a number of small shopping precincts, several with food courts, and independent outlets line the side streets. Cold Rock is an ice creamery extraordinaire, and located a few minutes from the Wharf. The Manly Deli, on the Corso, offers phenomenal, freshly made sandwiches. For more substantial meals, Scoozi Me has tasty Italian food at low prices in a cute setting.
-**- Shopping -**-
Manly is not where you'd go for a major shopping expedition, but it has its fair share of reasonably priced retail outlets, including a fantastic newsagents on the Corso that sells all manner of non-news items including discounted books, Christmas decorations and gourmet chocolates. There are numerous surf shops - an acknowledgement of the town's favourite past time - and various cheap ones selling tacky souvenirs and t-shirts and general household wares for a few dollars. Strangely, after the Corso the Wharf is one of the best places to go shopping. It offers an Aldi, a Body Shop, Max Brenners (a heavenly chocolate shop / café) and many more shops and eateries, handily located next to where the boats leave from.
-**- Verdict -**-
It's a great place in my mind because it is so relaxed - in a family and friends kinda way, not a drugged up free loving backpacker one. At Bondi there's a feeling of being on parade, or on your best behaviour, stomaches in and shoulders back, trying to look you best but Manly is the opposite of this - comfy, familiar and welcoming, where people not only don't mind if you don't look like a gym-a-holic sunbed-addict but also, on the whole, do not look like such themselves. People here are happy and healthy looking, and just what I need after a week at work at the hospital.
I really like Manly - the lay out, the feel, the people, the weather - to the extent that I would consider living there were I ever to move here permanently. That said, doing so might erase some of the charm: I grew up in Blackpool and never did quite grasp why people love it enough to visit on a yearly basis. Manly is lots of things - funky, chilled, laid back, quirky. There are a few downsides to the place - for example, on all but the earliest or latest ferries of the day, there is a mad crush to get on board and to nab a seat - but in general it's pretty much perfect, and a town in its own right, unlike Bondi and Coogee which are really just beach suburbs of Syndey. It goes without saying that I would recommend a visit, but I'll extend that to say I'd recommend several, as it's the kind of place you can visit again and again without it losing its charm. Visit mid-week if possible as numbers are halved, even on Fridays, and go early in the morning to get a full day there - once you get there, you'll want to stay. $1 = 42p
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