Manly to Bondi Walk – Leg #1

One of my focuses for 2025 was on getting healthy. I’ve been slowly recovering from a hip injury last year (when we moved house) that’s kept me from riding my bike, so I was looking for a more gentle athletic endeavour that would get me out of the house. Meanwhile, one of my college besties Eileen has been working on a project to walk across all of Rhode Island, broken up into day hike chunks. That inspired me to suggest to the Snook that we set a goal of completing the Bondi to Manly Walk.

If you don’t know our fair city, Manly is an ocean beach on the North Head of Sydney Harbour. Bondi is an ocean beach far south of the South Head of Sydney Harbour. Walking from one to the other means hiking along 80km / 50 miles around lots of little harbour inlets and across the a couple bridges, most notably the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There’s an ultramarathon every year where people run this in one go, but it’s much more common to break it up into chunks. The official website offers several different itineraries, and we’ve opted to go with the 7 day version. And just to be contrary, we decided to start at Manly and end at Bondi.

So today, we headed to Circular Quay and caught the ferry to Manly to do our first leg of around 10km. From there we walked down the Corso to the beach, stopping at a cafe for some lunch. We were well-prepared with water, sunscreen, bug spray, hats, and even light jackets. At the beach, I hit Start on Strava and we headed off towards the south end of the beach.

It was a good day for it – not too hot with a nice breeze, and clouds that occasionally let the sun through. As we neared Shelly Beach, we saw signs about protecting the water dragons, and it didn’t take long to spot a real one!

We were also amused to see brush turkeys right there at the beach. This guy was the first of many that we’d see on North Head.

Above Shelly Beach, we found a nice lookout.

The Shelly Beach to Barracks Precinct section felt like a proper hike, scrambling up roughhewn rock stairs or walking along dirt trails. We spotted a huge termite nest up in one of the trees!

At one point, we had to go through a gate in a big stone wall, which let us into the National Park. The trails were wider and easier to follow here. There were constantly seaplanes buzzing around overhead, taking tourists on joy flights. (You can see one above Rodd’s head here.)

We were happily surprised to come upon the Old Quarry Swamp, a “hanging swamp” up really high on top of the Headlands.

But OMG – the spiders. We saw so many huge orb spiders making nests in the trees, sometimes right over the trail we were walking on. In many cases the tiny male was there alongside the ginormous female. There’s one visible just in the center of this next photo.

During WW2, the Aussie military built and manned gun emplacements on North Head in case of Japanese attack. They were actually only ever fired once, and not even at an enemy. You can see the remains of some of the emplacements along the track.

As we got further south towards the Barracks Precinct, the land got wetter and swampier. The track turned into a well-maintained metal grate.

Finally we made it to the Barracks, the former School of Artillery. As we walked in and across the parade ground, Rodd remarked, “I’m pretty sure this was where one of the Biggest Loser seasons was filmed.” Turns out he was right! (They also host concerts up there.)

Once inside, we headed southwest and found a lookout back towards the city. It felt very weird to think we would eventually walk all the way there!

Another “attraction” up on North Head is the old Quarantine Station. For 150+ years, this station was used to reduce the risk of ship-borne diseases coming into Australia. Nowadays it’s got a ghost tour, a restaurant, and even accommodation. We didn’t go there, but we did stop for a break near this quarantine cemetery we passed along the track.

As you get further south and closer to the end of the headlands, there’s a Memorial Walk that honours those who have served and supported the defence of Australia in peace or in war. You can nominate a family member who served and pay to have a brick dedicated to them.

The Fairfax Walk is a small loop right at the top of the Headlands with spectacular views. Apparently sometimes you can even see whales? This was the view from Yiningma Lookout, looking north.

And here’s the view from Burragula Lookout, looking back towards the city.

From there we completed the loop back to the Barracks, passing through another hanging swamp. Rodd was trying to spot a frog he could hear croaking when I spotted something slithering next to the metal grate path. “SNAKE!” I said, jumping backwards. We both recoiled at the sight of a long, slender green snake disappearing into the grass. Rodd’s pretty sure it was a tree snake (not venomous, thankfully!), also looking for the frog. It certainly got the heart rate up!

Once we passed back through the Barracks, we started heading downhill along a winding road towards Collins Beach. It was lined with some very beautiful Sydney red gum trees as well as many other eucalypts.

We emerged from the trees at Collins Beach, a sheltered little harbour beach. I couldn’t believe we made it all the way down to sea level again.

From there we were in much more residential territory. We walked down to the Little Manly Point Park and then around to Little Manly Beach. It has a nice enclosed baths area, and there were some families taking advantage of it.

From there we headed north to Manly Cove. Finally the end was in sight!

Rodd was entranced by some little crabs chilling on the rocks below.

Tired, sore, and sweaty, we finally made it back to the Manly Ferry Wharf, our designated stopping point for the day. I took a photo to commemorate the milestone and hit Stop on Strava. Then we caught a ferry and began the journey home.

Here’s our Strava map for the day. We recorded a slightly higher distance than the official 10km for that leg, which is probably due to GPS weirdness and with us wandering and backtracking a bit. I’m not sure when we’ll get to Leg 2 – I’m going to need a bit of time to recover!