Sunday, Feb 28, 2016

After a small breakfast I went to the Haberfield Baptist Church for their 10:30 service. The message was about the ” Parable of the Sower ” and the pastor made an interesting reference about good ( willing ) soil by using the example of Horatio Spafford **, the Chicago lawyer who penned the song, ” It Is Well With My Soul “, after he lost his fortune and his 4 daughters due to a tragic accident. After the service I walked back through Haberfield to get back to my motel.

Haberfield is right next door to Summer Hill and from what I saw, it is nice area, with well-maintained homes and shops, where a lot of the residents are of Italian descent. When I went into one of the Cafes for lunch, I noticed that most of the people in the cafe were speaking Italian. As was to be expected the coffee was very excellent.

After finishing my Cappuccino and a slightly, cold lasagna, I went back to the motel to change before heading to the city center by train and then taking the ferry to Manly Beach, as had been suggested to me. When I got off of the train, I noticed that my OPAL card ( the one I had used to get on the train ) was missing, so I had to get assistance, from one of the agents at the station in order to pick up a new card, add some money to it and then log on to my account and ” block ” the old card. I still need assistance to transfer the money from the old card on to the new one, but that won’t happen until Monday morning when someone will be available to answer my message.

I couldn’t believe the crowds of people along the wharf. There is a ferry every half hour to Manly Beach and each one of them can carry 1100 passengers and all them were full. I don’t really care for crowds but I ended up being in the middle of 1100 people trying to get onto the ferry. It was quite an experience.

From the ferry I was able to get good pictures of the Sydney Sky Harbour Bridge,

and the Sydney Opera House. If you look closely at the picture you can see that it also has hundreds of people around it.

When we reached Manly Beach and docked, it was another challenge getting off the boat, with the throng of people.

The wharf has a lot of restaurants, inside and around the building and it opens up to the streets and Manly Beach on the west side.

I went on the beach walkway and as I turned the corner, I noticed that it kept going, so I kept going. I didn’t realize that there was a walkway from the beach to the ” spit ” until I checked it out on my phone. Apparently the distance to the ” spit ” is 10 km long and I didn’t have proper walking shoes, but my sandals are comfortable, so I decided to go as far as I could.

As I walked along the path, I noticed that there were other beaches, some, like this one, that had some large rocks in them, however, there were quite a few people, swimming and playing in the water.

Four kilometers later, after travelling over several different walkways, rocks and gravel paths, I was at a lookout at the far side of the bay with a view back to the ferry terminal and the beach.

I could have gone another 6 km to the ” spit ” but it was getting late, so I decided to head back. I retraced my steps and after 7 pm, I was back in Summer Hill. I went to an Italian restaurant, called Andiamo Trattoria and had an excellent, spicy, thin crust pizza. With all of the Italian food I have eaten the last few days, you might say I have been ” Italicized “.

Note: ** For those of you that don’t know the story about Horatio Stafford you can read more about him at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Is_Well_with_My_Soul