Sometime in 1788 after he, his 709 soldiers and 778 convicts landed at Sydney Cove, Captain Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of Australia got a bit bored of barbecuing fish for dinner and flogging misbehaving convicts so he and a few mates decided to take off for an extended Harbour cruise in the newly settled city of Sydney.
Sailing across the harbour, yet to be crowded in with her Bridge, her Opera House and her 2000 burnt-lobster-red British backpackers, Arthur looked to an as yet undiscovered beach and saw a group of aboriginals sharing a whale. Noting their masculine physique as rather ‘manly’, the tourist Mecca that is Manly Beach was born. Unfortunately for the aboriginal people, Arthur and his red-coated mates would quickly get to expelling them into the lower echelons of the Sydney Real Estate market, shock horror, the Western Suburbs in order to establish the primordial tenet of said Real Estate Market; only the English and/or criminals can afford to live in Manly.
Sunrise on Manly Beach
Manly is a suburb north of Sydney, similar to Coney Island in New York, most famous for being the post-war holiday resort for the proletariat. As a girl, Gramma would pack us up with a cossie*, a bucket and spade and 10 inches of zinc cream plastered across the nose for a day at the beach. A day that would be punctuated by screams of ‘get back between the flags’, a fish and chips lunch and the requisite end of the day examination of the head to toe sunburn.
The Ocean Pool at Queenscliff
A marine hued blend of Art Deco architecture, surf culture and private English language schools, Manly today is home to that half of Sydney’s backpackers that can’t afford to live in Bondi and about 30,000 French people; the perfect destination for a mini-break with Motherbear.
The Surf Club - home of the life savers - the manliest of Manly Men
Four days of beach walking, beach watching, beach scrutinising and beach listening and this is what I have to show for it.
Manly, like all modern suburbs of Paris or Sydney has a very strict code of conduct. Apart from the obvious, you must possess equal liquid assets to Richard Branson in order to purchase anywhere near the water, and to walk the precious beach you must also be in possession of a B, an S or an S. The BSS code scratched into the hallowed sandstone commandments of the Manly Beach Code of Conduct and up-its-own-arseness requires that you be in possession of a bike, pushing a stroller or carrying a surfboard. Furthermore, if you are an amateur contortionist, you have got all three going on at the same time.
Early in the morning is the domain of the amateur athlete, running, walking, panting, huffing, pushing and pulling their way up the beach dodging the ever-present tribe of surfers clutching their seven foot long weapons of mass floatation under their well hewn bronzed and neoprene-d arms.
Ocean swimming in winter is only for Manly Men
Examining the rhythms of daily life from our ocean-view balcony, Motherbear and I became quite taken with surfercise. A series of highly camp stretches and movements that surfers undertake prior to engaging in the delicate balancing act that is shark-dodging, also known as surfing. Watching them mince across the sand in their suits while and attempting to avoid the heights of camp and remain ‘manly men’ was indeed very amusing, especially as neoprene is not the most forgiving of fabrics, especially in the intra thigh region.
The Shark Net, keeps the sharks out
From mid-morning until the afternoon, the beach becomes a giant playroom. Every human soul between zero and 48 months is being pushed or rolled up and down the shore by their over-zealous and baby-fat burning mother who can talk on the phone, push the stroller and sip a latte at the same time.
Peak Hour in the surf; those black dots are all Manly Men
In rolls the evening, and the boys light up; the suits, the dads, the boys, the blokes, the whole damn manly crowd head out for their evening beer. So enthusiastic are the men of the North to demonstrate their testosteroned limits, they also enjoy hitting each other as a kind of full-stop on their evenings out and about. Most alcohol licensing laws in Sydney are a result of some moron in Manly hitting a passing child, his girlfriend or a highly recognisable public figure after a drunken binge at the Steyne.
Manly Cove seen from the Ferry - stay safe within The Shark Net
The last night we stayed in Manly, we shared our hotel with the Melbourne Storm, a rugby league team who became victims of Manly’s manliness in a brawl involving the entire Manly Rugby League team who are also, very much Manly Men.
Manly, once named after semi naked whale hunters has remained true to its heritage as the home of all that is masculine and virile in Sydney. Unlike the rest of the Harbour city…more about that later.
No place like home....Sydney, in late winter, seen from the Manly Ferry
* Australians, obviously all obsessed with Kylie, have a passion of shortening every word and adding an ‘EE’ sound to the end. Breakfast, swimming costume, present, Vegemite, Australian and sunglasses become brekkie, cossie, pressie, Veggie, Aussie and sunnies.
Where are the cuties Aussies naked on the beach and sexy Madonna swimming as Ariel the little mermaid!?
Posted by: louis XIV | 09/04/2011 at 03:06 PM