Sunday 29 November 2020

The End of the Manly Ferries

 This is sad...

The large, double ended ferries that currently ply between Sydney'sCircular Quay and Manly are to be replaced. They are quite easily the best thing about Sydney, and to see them go will be sad.

True, some days the noise of the ferries booms across the harbour and can't be escaped, but the ride between Circular Quay and Manly feels special. No matter how much cleaner, quieter or more modern the replacements are, for people of a certain age (anyone currently over 5 years old) the trip will lose some of its magic.

The new boats (I won't call them ferries) are catamarans built in China, examples of which can already be seen on the harbour on lesser routes. They will only carry 40% of the number of people of the boats they are replacing, and they won't have a little shop selling junk food.

In all, that's sad.

5 comments:

chm said...

Unfortunately, some people would say, you can't stop progress, or is it?

Autolycus said...

How would the new ones cope with crossing the swell? That was a minor adventure, the time I went to Sydney - and I have an alarming photo of waves crashing over the ferry on a windy day.

Simon said...

Good question. I have had interesting times on the crossing. Dating back to 2967 and the old, even bigger, ferries. I am not sure the catamarans will cope

Simon said...

1967....

Le Pré de la Forge said...

LOL.... Back to the future, Simon!!
But, on a more serious note....
as someone who has never been to 'Stralia... and hadn't had any Ozzies in my circle of friends and aquaintancies.... even I had heard of the big green Sydney ferries [probably from the National Geographic]

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