Sunday 13 December 2015

Spit Bridge To Manly Walk

The Spit Bridge To Manly walk features on a lot of "best things to do in Sydney" lists, so I thought I'd do it given some free time in Sydney. It's a beautiful walk and well worth doing: 10.5km, 191m elevation, 2 hours walking time at a fairly quick pace, and 3 hours total including hanging out on the beach.

Getting to spit bridge from Glebe on public transport involved light rail and two buses, and should have taken about an hour, but I messed up the stops at one point so it took a bit longer. Doing the more complicated transport juggling at the start is better because you finish with the simple and spectacular Manly ferry ride back into town. The closest bus stop to the start of the walk requires a dash across a fairly busy highway to get onto the other side, there's probably a better way to do that.

You get a lot of great stuff on this walk, but on a weekend in good weather solitude isn't one of them. I found myself wishing I had brought my headphones to avoid listening to inane conversations being had by others. You'll do a lot of overtaking and/or getting trapped behind other groups.



There's a few amazingly pretty little beaches that were deserted except for a handful of rich people on their boats. Come prepared to swim, you'll want to.

Castle Rock beach, one of the best.

Great tree colours

One of the best views. There's a decent climb in the walk, more if you take the sidetrip to Arabanoo lookout as I did. Manly on the left.

As you get closer to Manly the walk is mostly a tour of rich-people houses, and one smelly boat-launch cove.

Quintessential Sydney view from the ferry on the way back.

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