When you talk about coastal walks in Sydney there are two that come to mind: Bondi to Coogee if you think south of the bridge, and the Spit Bridge to Manly on the north. And though I consider myself as a more outdoorsy Sydneysider, the Spit to Manly walk was still a to do on my bucket list. So when it was suggested that we go for the walk, I was very excited to see what the fuss was about.
Day trip date: 20/10/2018
At the end of October there was finally some reprieve from the rain that had soaked us for a solid three weeks. Yes it was needed and our lawns and gardens had grown a lush green from all the showers, but it really dampens your outdoor weekend plans, ya know?
With the skies clear, a few of us took the opportunity to do the Spit Bridge to Manly Walk. Packed with a picnic lunch and our doggies, we headed north.
Since we were taking our dogs, the logistics of how we were going to get there and back needed some consideration. Generally, the recommendation is to park at Spit Bridge Reserve, do the walk to Manly, and then taxi or public transport back to the car. Because we had our dogs, it was decided that we'd take a few cars and park on each end. So we ended up leaving 1 car at Spit Bridge Reserve and drove 2 cars up to start the walk from Manly side instead. Little did we know that that was probably not the greatest idea...
As I did not plan this outing I didn't do much prior research on the walk itself. Generally, if I'm invited to something I'm happy to take the back seat and tag along for the ride. The only prep I had done was check how long it would take to get to the meetup point. I asked our Google Home how long the walk was and it said that it would take an hour so I thought that wasn't too bad. It seems that Google actually didn't understand my question because it turned out that the Spit Bridge to Manly Walk is a 10 km hike which can take up to 3 - 5 hours. Google must have thought I was asking how long it would take to get there, so I really didn't know what I was in for.
Points of Interest
Manly Cove: Manly is an icon in it's own right. No tourist trip to Sydney is complete without a ferry ride to Manly. Though we drove in this time round it's always a site to see the ferries pull into the wharf over the calm waters of the bay.
Fairlight Beach: From Manly Cove we followed the Fairlight walk along the coastline. This was a slight incline but a paved path which made for a pleasant start. For those looking for a dip, you can swim at Fairlight Beach which also has a tide pool. Since we hadn't planned to go swimming we had fun climbing the rocks and checking out the rock pools nearby.
North Harbour Reserve: Once we got to the Manly Boatshed, the path turns into North Harbour Walk which required us to walk down some suburban back streets. This lead onto North Harbour Reserve. This was a great place for our picnic lunch since it had a big open grassed area for the dogs to run around, but it also has other facilities such as electric BBQs with seating, children's playground, basketball hoops and public toilets. There was also a dog friendly beach right next to it for the girls to take a dip and make some new friends.
Yuki and Chippy making friends. Miso realising she’s missing out XD
Looks like the black dog is dead…and Miso is so proud lol.
Forty Baskets Beach and Reef Beach: As we continued south passed Davis Marina we got to see some nice views of all the boats in the harbour. We went past Forty Baskets Beach and Reef Beach before the terrain started to incline as entered the Sydney Harbour National Park. Note: we didn't realise this at the time but dogs are not allowed in the national park. It was too late for us to go back now so we kept going.
Crater Point: The midday sun was beaming down on us as we continued to climb up Dobroyd Head. We stopped by Crater Point Lookout to appreciate the Bay from above. By this point, the dogs were getting pretty exhausted and looked to hide away under shade at every opportunity. We had come to a fork in the road that said that the section heading towards Spit Bridges was going to be steep and difficult or we could exit the national park to some streets and call an Uber for a lift back to the car. We opted for the latter and made camp at Tania Park for our ride to arrive.
It’s interesting to see one side of the path affected by fires whilst the other side remains green.
We reached halfway and managed to get this view before calling it a day.
Though we didn’t manage to do the full walk, it was a great day out amongst a very scenic backdrop. Had we started from the other end, I’m sure we could have made it. There’s always next time...
