A Manly Walk

Last weekend George, Vikram, Saikia and I went for a walk in Manly. Like all of George's weekend activities it involved the loss of a precious lie-in so we could catch an early train. From Meadowbank we took the ferry down the river to Circular Quay. It was another beautiful winter's day in Sydney, the wind was cool but the sun was shining.

After my sailing trip on the harbour some time ago I had bought some drugs to try and combat the seasickness. I decided that I'd test them out on this trip under controlled circumstances.

We got to Circular Quay and had a hearty breakfast of doughnuts and coffee while we waited for the Manly ferry to arrive. The Manly ferry is infamous in Sydney for being a rough ride as you pass the Heads so I decided to take one of the pills.

The crossing wasn't bad and we arrived in Manly in time for fish and chips at Shelly beach. It was then that I discovered a side-affect of the drugs - drowsiness. Despite being midday and sunny I was about to fall asleep!

After lunch we went on a leisurely walk around North Head. We had great views of Manly and visited what George calls 'The Hidden Lagoon' but is really a big puddle on the top. Vikram did his best to scare George by trying to fall off the cliff while George spotted a couple of dead cuttlefish that he tried to persuade us were still alive.

George wanted to get wet so insisted that we sit up front on the ferry for the crossing back to Sydney. After watching the ferry crashing through the waves I took another pill. There were some decent waves and we all got wet so George was happy.

I managed to get home just in time to become comatose. I'm not sure how good these drugs are at preventing seasickness but they're very good for insomnia!