Document Everything: Daytrip to Manly beach, or, Adventures in ferry driving

On the day before I left to head back to the States, Gali and I took a little day trip over to Manly in the Northern part of the city, first making a little stop into Circular Quay to see the modern art museum. The weather started clearing up as we boarded the ferry to head over from the museum to Manly, so Gali prompted me to "play the tourist" and ask one of the ferry workers where the best view would be of the Harbor from the boat deck. In typical super-helpful Australian fashion, she proceeded to give us a break down of possible vantage points and turns that the ferry would make. We thanked her and headed inside to grab some tea for the 30 min. journey over to Manly.

With tea purchased we made our way to the deck where we ran into our super helpful friend again and she quickly exclaimed, "oh I've been looking for your ladies everywhere! Come with me..." and led us through 'staff only' doors and up staircases, finally arriving at the main control room with the Captain and his first mate. Super excited for this turn of events and our VIP view of the Harbor, Gali and I couldn't believe our luck, but things got even sillier when they let us steer the ferry for a good portion of the journey! I will say, it's a lot harder than it looks, the reaction time from steering the wheel (please excuse my lack of nautical terminology) to the ferry actually turning that way seems like ages, but if you go too far, it really goes...I will never look at ferries the same way again.

Yet another example of Australians just being super nice for no other reason than to be nice and have a good time! Love that country...