Manly Beach and Jamie Oliver's

Since Christmas was a bust for beach hanging out, we went on the 27th. It was sunny and 79. We got up early, made sandwiches and snacks and grabbed the Manly ferry. It has one job, shuttling people to and from Circular Quay and Manly Wharf. It is a huge ferry because it crosses the heads. Between the heads, the water from the Pacific is so strong the change in motion of the ferry is extremely noticeable.

As we pulled out of Circular Quay, this guy decided to hitch a ride.

These are the heads.

It's a short walk from the wharf over to the Pacific side.

 

When we got to the beach, it looked like this.

 

When we left, it looked like this.

 

We were very careful to reapply sunscreen, and equal our sun time with shade time.

 

 

Santa brought Christine and I some trendy retro bathing suits.

We planned to have a beach day the next day as well, so we kept this stay to 4 hours, and got back to the CBD in time for dinner at Jamie Oliver's. They don't take reservations and usually it's hard to get a table there, but we were there by 5:00, so we got a table right away.

We were starving from all our travels and the day in the sun. Toby and Christine both got veggie cannelloni three ways, Chris got clams and linguine, and I got truffled risotto. We also had an epic brownie for dessert. By the time we remembered to take a pic of the brownie, it was decimated.

The best part of the evening was that it was Friday night, and finally after a long time, we were having Friday night dinner with friends again! Ok, some of the usual suspects were missing, but we were happy.

We ended the night by walking down to the Harbour and watching the bats fly in from across the water at sunset. They were coming to rest in the tree right next to where we were sitting. It was a pretty amazing thing to see and Toby's favorite part of the day.

 

The next day was beach day too. Christine did a two for one post here.

 

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Fish Markets

The thing to do here for Christmas is go to the Sydney Fish Market. So we did.

We went first thing in the morning to try and beat the crowds, but it was still pretty crowded. The Fish Market is open 24 hours starting the night before Christmas Eve.

This was just one of the seafood counters. There was so much seafood to choose from.

 

 

 

 

 

Notice there's a Cricket staple in this shot.

 

We ended up with calamari, shrimp, cod, and king crab legs.

We made three meals out of our haul. Crab legs for lunch and fish tacos for dinner on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas we had calamari and seafood pasta. (Christine's Christmas post can be seen here)

Many thanks to Christine's parents Tom and Nicki. They left some Australian cash from their visit, and we put some of it to good use at the Fish Market! It was perfect, thanks guys!

 

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Sunrise

In Sweden sunrise right now is somewhere around 8:30. In Sydney, it's somewhere around 5:30. I headed out for a run this morning across the Harbour Bridge at 5:45. Unlike the Golden Gate Bridge, bikes are restricted to one side of the bridge, while pedestrians are on the other. Luckily, the pedestrian side is to the East as is the Opera House.

It was a beautiful morning with an amazing view.

 

 

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Sailing

Day two in Sydney is best seen here, Ferrying Around. I know some of you read both mine and Christine's blogs, so to save you some time, we are trying to coordinate.

On day three, Toby and Christine had bought us a sailing trip on the tall ships. Toby started out as our tour guide and we walked past this tree.

We did a little shopping on our way to meet Christine for lunch while she was at work. There was a Columbia store going out of business and we couldn't help ourselves but to take advantage of the deals!

After we left Christine, she asked Toby to be sure and take plenty of pictures, here's what she got.

That's Christine in the coral dress beside the blue pole

Actually, he did a great job.

He even got us from the Harbour Bridge as we sailed out to sea.

The ship was made by a Dane in the 1700's. It was used to shuttle prisoners from England. It was restored in the 1950's.

The trip was a lot of fun. We motored out and sailed back. There were snacks too. We had fried wanton purses, garlic shrimp, spinach and feta quiches, satay curry chicken, mango and yogurt, and brownies. We were full by the time we docked back at Circular Quay.

Garlic shrimp

The view of the bridge, skyline, and opera house was amazing.

Here's our real captain, Marty.

The crew lived on the ship. They have a 3 month contract. Chris was pretty close to having a job offer. I'm sure he would love to be on a ship in Australia for 3 months. He'd make it back to Sweden just in time for spring. The below quarters were actually pretty roomy.

Toby was waiting back at the dock for us and we headed for pizza at a cool pub in the Rocks.

 

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