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It quite resembles an old fashioned British seaside resort, though few places in Britain ever get the sort of sunshine we had today.
Strangely for such a warm place signs all over the place warn you to beware of the penguins. And yes, according to the locals penguins do sometimes appear, though it is rare.
What I did see was quite a large lizard, showing himself (or herself) to beg for food from a tourist. Manly was named because the early colonisers (I would call them Australians) were very impressed by the men of the local tribe.
This was probably because they had plenty of time to posture since most of the work seems to have been done by the women. The women also impressed the colonisers largely because they had the habit of going about nude. You don't really need clothes if the weather is like it was today.
Today was polling day in a rather strange referendum currently going on in Oz. This has taken on something of the character of the EU referendum in blighty, in that the enlightened middle class are about to be overwhelmingly beaten by the lower orders.
The issue is, to say the least, arcane. It is whether the aborigines should be given more say in matters that concern them. All well and good except the argument is that if powerful people have the right to lobby government in their interests so should the aborigines. Well in my view powerful people shouldn't have the right...
But there you go. The real problem is that if they got a say the government could, and probably would, ignore them. Governments do that sort of thing.
Jonathan Brind