Day 103 – The English Sleeping Team

With days running out it was time to focus on the tan. For all the sun we’ve seen we’ve not done much relaxing on the beach, leaving me with an awesome farmer’s tan. So we got ourselves down to Shelly Beach for a few hours of sun before the heat of midday. With the sea being calm I got in another long sea swim, this time hugging the coastline. The visibility was pretty good and I got a good aquatic display as I swam.

We avoided the midday sun by sorting out our plans for the next few days. We both wanted to see a bit more of the coastline so we’ve hired a car and booked up three nights in YHA’s down the  coast. We should cover around 700 kilometres and have time to do a bit of exploring in a few towns.

Making the most of our time in Manly we hit the beach again in the afternoon. The clouds didn’t want to let the sun come out to play so it was a short lived beach session. With the temperature falling I took myself for a run in the one direction I hadn’t been. I headed back to Shelly and followed a steep and uneven path round the coast, through and old artillery placement and up to North Head. I had only planned on a short run but ended up doing over 10k.

In the evening we met up with Matt, who’d offered to take us on a night out in town with some of his friends. We headed to the trendy Wharf Bar we we were introduced as the English Sleeping Team – Matt’s nickname for us as he thinks we sleep too much. We sat on the outside deck looking out over the harbour and watched as the lightning roll in from the city. After meeting a few of Matt’s friends, some of whom we’d met at Jac’s BBQ, we had a late one, ending up at the Boat Shed Club, Manly’s place not to be seen! The best thing about going out in Manly is that the bakery is still open and serves pies and cake in the early hours!