The Art Gallery is also huge (this appears to be a bit of a theme in Sydney) and it's free. There are galleries displaying Australian art from the 1700's all the way to the present, as well as European artists and of course Aboriginal art as well. I don't think I was quite in the right frame of mind to spend the day in the gallery... I kept finding myself wandering aimlessly through each room, staring at two or three paintings and then moving on. When I was in the contemporary art section, once again I found that most of the artwork I just didn't understand - and the little blurbs beside each piece weren't all that helpful. I think I need to spend some time at a gallery with someone who actually understands this stuff and can explain it to me. I mean, I can admire a piece for its use of colour, texture, or whatever, or see how the artist has captured motion or mood, but when it comes to symbolism...? I'm totally lost.
So the long and the short of it is I left the gallery about 1:30, much earlier than I'd expected, and wasn't sure what to do with myself for the rest of the afternoon. I caught a train and found myself back at Circular Quay, where all the ferries depart for various points around Sydney Harbour. On a whim I got on the Manly ferry, mostly because my tour book said that the Manly beach was great. Once again the book did not disappoint! Manly is located at the mouth of the Harbour, so it was about a 30min ride on the ferry to get there. As we approached the ocean, there were ocean swells, so even though we were on a pretty big ship, we sure were rocking! The weather was absolutely perfect for sitting out on the outdoors deck to take in the scenery.
Once I'd disembarked at the Manly wharf, I just kind of followed the crowd through the uber-touristy section of Manly and before I knew it I was standing on the beach, with an unobstructed view of the beautiful Pacific Ocean. Beach stretched as far as the eye could see off to my left, and to my right the beach ended in a headland which marked the entrance to the Harbour. The breakers were just gently rolling in and lots of folks were boogie boarding and surfing. So I wandered down the beach a little ways, plunked myself down on the sand, and enjoyed people-watching for probably a good 45 minutes.
However, I'd managed to forget how long it would take me to get back to Bill and Ruth's house - so I was almost late for dinner!
I have been enjoying all this wandering I've done on my own, but am looking forward to doing some touring with others. Somehow it's not the same when you aren't able to share that sense of discovery with other people. Tomorrow I'm going canoeing with some of the local Girl Guides, and hopefully on Sunday Ruth and Carroll and I will get to do a bit of hiking. Then it's only one more short week before I meet up with Jen!
