Well, after the hectic last day on the Indian Pacific train, we had a good nights sleep in the Mercury Hotel, then picked up our car (1 day late) for the drive to Manly Beach, where we had booked an apartment near the beach.

We only hoped it was better than the one on the Swan River in Perth and it was, a great little place, just 15 steps away from the beach front walkway 👍👍

The first day the weather was great (with noisy parrots calling, although we couldn’t see them in the trees), so we dumped our cases and walked down to the sea.

There were loads of people in the Sea, surfing or snorkelling and from the bottom of our street, we could see Manly Beach and town about five minutes walk one way and Shelly Beach about two minutes walk the other!

On the way along the beach walk, we came across this Water Dragon and no, we didn’t know what it was until we saw the sign, it was quite big, about a foot long and we have seen several since a little bigger!

It looked really tempting, so we donned the swim suits and wet suits and struck out for the waves, as you can see in the selfie below.

”Grrrr, keep it truthful”  “We are trying too Millie, but we keep getting carried away with all the excitement”  “ok, but don’t forget I’m watching 👿”  “Come on Millie, be a good girl”  “I am 👍”  “Ok xxxxxx”

After a day exploring and a bottle of wine! We went to bed, to awaken, in the middle of the night, to the sound of heavy rain falling and it was still falling heavily when we finally rolled out of bed.

We didn’t mind a bit, we would far rather have heavy rain, than the threat of the danger of the bush fires that were raging all around the area we were staying in, although we had not actually seen any, just a slight smell of smoke. 👿

As you can see below, the two days of rain had a massive damping effect on the bush fires, so we didn’t mind it at all.
One picture is on the 16th Jan and the other on the 18th Jan after two days of heavy rain 👍👍

On this first rainy day, we didn’t go far, just chilled, but on the second day (of heavy rain),  we decided to jump in the car and explore, so we set off to see the world famous Bondi Beach, although as you can see in the photos, there weren’t many people in the water.

But then the heavens cleared and it was back to sunny weather the next day, so off we went, along the sea walk to Manly, to find that there was some sort of beach event, with loads of people from different children’s ‘surfing’ clubs all competing in different events.

The next day was sunny too, so we decided to go to Shelly beach instead (even closer, but smaller than Manly) to have a look around.

When we got there, a snorkelling club had just arrived, so we joined them for a bit of snorkelling

“Will you two behave – grrr”. “Oh Millie, were just trying to make it more exciting 😂”  “I know, but don’t go too far”  “ok xx”

Where were we? Oh yes, just telling you how we joined the snorkelling club to have a dive in the Aquatic Preserve.

Almost forgot to say that on the way to Shelly Beach, we saw yet more Water Dragons and loads of what looked like wild turkeys.

To finish, look what golfers over here have to contend with 😂😂

Right, back to the apartment, to pack ready to leave tomorrow to go to Sidney, but we only just made it back before it thundered and poured it down with rain again 👿 and not just rain, but really heavy hailstones as well!

We have certainly had a range of weathers 👍👍 in Aussie Land.

Two days in the Shanghai-La hotel in Sidney, then jumping on a Cruise ship for a two week trip to New Zealand.

More to follow, so ‘See ya Mate’ xx