After 2 fantastic weeks in Australia we have come to the end of this part of our world tour. We have thoroughly enjoyed Australia and it has definitely been a highlight (although there have been several in the past 4 months!). We decided to spend the last day at Manly and the northern beaches. We visited Manly when we last visited Sydney in 2003 and had a great day there so wanted to see if it had changed. It definitely hadn’t, a wonderful beach and great walks along the coast round to smaller secluded bays which we enjoyed.
We then drove further north from Manly. This was because Ruth had seen a place on the map called Palm Beach and fancied a visit. This entailed a drive through some exclusive neighbourhoods with beautiful houses backing onto the water. There were also loads of brilliant beaches along the route. We arrived at Palm Beach and had a walk round. To our surprise we discovered it was the place where the famous Aussie soap opera “Home and Away” was filmed. This was a total coincidence and it definitely did make up for our failure to find Ramsey Street when in Melbourne. As avid followers of the soap in the late 80s and early 90s (well Ruth was - loved Bobbie, Frank and Mr Fisher!!) we had to have our pics taken outside the surf club (Alf was not there though – shame).
So a great end to our Australian visit. Australia is such an amazing country and the people there do not realise how lucky they are compared to UK. There is so much space everywhere for everyone. Everything is geared to an outdoor lifestyle. You can pull up to a beach with free parking right on the front and all the amenities are there (toilets, free BBQs, picnic tables, showers etc) and this is in even the smallest of places. You can always find a car parking space even at peak times. Even the traffic was fine, we drove round Melbourne and Sydney and did not encounter any problems at all (we had even set the sat nav to avoid the toll roads). So Australia is somewhere we love to come back to one day, hope its not too soon!!
We then drove further north from Manly. This was because Ruth had seen a place on the map called Palm Beach and fancied a visit. This entailed a drive through some exclusive neighbourhoods with beautiful houses backing onto the water. There were also loads of brilliant beaches along the route. We arrived at Palm Beach and had a walk round. To our surprise we discovered it was the place where the famous Aussie soap opera “Home and Away” was filmed. This was a total coincidence and it definitely did make up for our failure to find Ramsey Street when in Melbourne. As avid followers of the soap in the late 80s and early 90s (well Ruth was - loved Bobbie, Frank and Mr Fisher!!) we had to have our pics taken outside the surf club (Alf was not there though – shame).
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| Summer Bay !! |
So a great end to our Australian visit. Australia is such an amazing country and the people there do not realise how lucky they are compared to UK. There is so much space everywhere for everyone. Everything is geared to an outdoor lifestyle. You can pull up to a beach with free parking right on the front and all the amenities are there (toilets, free BBQs, picnic tables, showers etc) and this is in even the smallest of places. You can always find a car parking space even at peak times. Even the traffic was fine, we drove round Melbourne and Sydney and did not encounter any problems at all (we had even set the sat nav to avoid the toll roads). So Australia is somewhere we love to come back to one day, hope its not too soon!!
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