Eight years ago, I lived in Manly, a beachside suburb ‘seven miles from Sydney and a million miles from care’, for four months. One of my travel goals was to visit my former home, and take a ride on the Manly ferry, the boat service connecting the town with Sydney city centre. I was keen to show Dave the place I used to live and hoped he’d love it as much as me.

When we arrived it was a perfect Manly day – warm and sunny, the beach was busy and the surfers were out. It didn’t take long to locate my old studio apartment on Pine St and it looked as I remembered. We were fortunate that a guy was renovating the flat next to mine, and invited us in to have a look around. All the flats are the same layout, apparently they used to be flashy hotel rooms in the ’60s. I found too, the pub where Matt and I won $1000 in a pub quiz. I can still remember our astonishment!

After reminiscing, I took Dave for an afternoon stroll along the beach, where we bought expensive ice-creams (they don’t seem to sell cheap ones these days) and sat on the wharf watching the people to-and-fro from the city.

We planned to take the ferry the next day. I wanted Dave to have his first view of the Sydney skyline from the water, as it’s the best way to capture it all in one go. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans….

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