Sarah wanted to go to the pool at the caravan park, Tim wanted anything involved with his kindle or the tv room and Emily didn't know.
We decided to go on the ferry to Watsons Bay and take the kids togs so they could have a swim. So back to the train station and into the city. We managed to get a top deck on the train much to the kids enjoyment. We had to swap trains at Wynyard station for Circular Quay. A very helpful ticket collector pointed us the right way.
Leaving from wharf 4, we caught a cat out onto the Harbour. The view of the city, Opera House, bridge and the cruse liner that was still there, was amazing. It was a beautiful day with a fair but warmish wind. It was about a 20 minute ride out to Watsons Bay where we arrived at about 11:30.
The plan was to get fish and chips from Doyles, a "famous" place much in the line of Morgans up in Redcliffe. Looking at the number of tourists getting off the ferry we decided to avoide the rush and grab lunch right away. The food was not bad, but nothing on Marie's fish and chips back home.
We ate in the park just off the beach overlooking the Harbour with a view of the city and the top of the bridge. Afterwards we headed to the eastern side of the headland and looked out on the Pacific Ocean. The lookout and path are being upgraded and will be closed next week so our timing was good.
The view is brilliant, the sky is a beautiful clear blue with no clouds matched only by the colour of the water, and to top it off looking out from the top of the cliffes we could see square rigger manovering under sail out to sea. This really is a beautiful part of the world.
We headed north up the headland towards the Harbour entrance and encountered a couple of plaques describing some of the history of the military encampments on the headland. The area used to be an artillery training camp and this area of it has been taken over by the national park. The native bush is gradually taking over from the old army gardens, but you can still see the edges for he garden beds hidden in the bush.
Along the edge of the cliff ther is old cement barriers and gun emplacements. We got to the top of this walk and were able to look out over the entrance to the Harbour. Heading back we took a somewhat overgrown payh to the west leading back over the headland.
There is still a naval base on the headland and we found our way to the front gate. We looked at the bomb and the mine they had on display then headed back down the hill towards Camp Cove where Emily and Sarah had their swim. We used an ice cream as a bribe to get Sarah back out of the water to let us continue on to the lighthouse.
The 500 meter walk out to the light house passes one of the nudast beaches wher the kids were a bit taken aback to see an old couple walking around in their finery. Onwards and we reached some interesting rock walls sporting rifle shooting holes as well as a gun emplacement looking over the harbour and the light house keepers house. Out the front of the house is a hole about two meters across dug about a meter down into the rock. Seems to have been hand dug along with the rocks around it, not sure what this is but it has the look of the gun emplacements further around, however there is no visible evidence of fittings or fixtures.
Further around we came across the lighthouse itself. A squat red and weight colored lighthouse built in the 1800's.
Along the western end of the point there two more gun emplacements built from the bedrock as well as placed shaped stones. Tim did some more investigation and found some tunnels that appear to lead to an underground store, now bricked up. A torch through a steel door on one entrance shows that theirs used to be an extensive tunnel system under the top of the headland. Apparently there even more old fortifications in the navy restricted area. Tim was having a ball exploring the area and theorizing what each section might have been used for.
We're going to have to take the kids to Fort Lytton at some point as it has a very similar feel.
From the gun emplacements the path leads back to camp cove. We had to make tracks to see if we could get the 3:45 ferry. We made it with plenty of time and sat ourselves on the front deck for the return trip. On the way back we were treated to a float plane taking off as well as some more interesting though smokey views of the bridge and city.
After exploring some more of The Rocks we decided to have dinner, Japanese, in the city to avoid peak hour. We also looked for a cache placed near some buildings used in the Matrix films, alas with no joy. Apparently peak hour runs late in Sydney as the train we got at 6:30 was the busiest we have yet seen. Emily fell asleep on the train whilst Sarah and Kerrie worked on a sudoku they found in the newspaper.
Walking back to the park from the station in the dark we treated by a possum chewing on the leftovers some grot had not cleaned off the camp BBQ. Looks like I'll have to clean it if I want to use it for breakfast.
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