Manly Scenic Walk

Friday was a regular hospital day... It was Michelle's last day and the neurosurgical team from the public hospital went out to have coffee together after we had finished rounds. Later wasn't much to do. I helped them "stick needles into patients" and afterwards joined Charlie in his clinic again, since there was nothing left to do on the ward. Clinic was once again really interesting. And I did see him tell a patient that the tumor was inoperable for the first time. I also saw how he deals with patients that aren't sure about whether or not they want surgery.... he tells them not to have it! Which is really good, because usually those are the patients who will end up having complications. And after having seen a patient where everybody in the room agreed that the he did not want surgery, Charlie once more explained to us the importance of never trying to convince a patient that surgery would be best for him....
Today I was hoping for the 10-25% chance of rain, which had been on the forecast for the past week..... But it did not happen: we had showers all morning, but those weren't bad and I did not let them stop me! I took the ferry to Manly. That is a beach at the nothern side of the habour. It is really long and nice beach. Manly too is a pretty litte tourist suburb..... I really enjoyed the colorfull houses along the main tourist streets even though it was raining and thunder storming a little.... When the little baby thunderstorm started I was hoping it would pass through just like all the other little showers and started the Manly scenic walk even though it was raining quite a bit. And I was lucky, after about 30minutes the rain stopped and never started like that again. I had to deal with some spaying and the second rain of the forest, but other than that it stayed dry!!!!! I did not regret having taken the chance and doing the 10km walk along the coast. I had some incredible views across the harbour and parts of the town. The way through the Sydney national Coast park was very adventurous as well - natural stone stairs, small walk ways, lots of trees and very very green plants, ups and downs, wooden walkways overcrossing little waterfalls.... It was really, really great, even though once I got to the part where one had to walk along the beach I whished I had had some more solid ground, because after at least 8-9km of walking up and down, climbing stones .... my feet did not enjoy walking on the slippery sand.... But anyway it was as great trip along the coast again, even though I did not get to see quite as much water this time, because most of the time I was walking surrounded by trees/plants.... Unfortunataly most of the animals were always way to quick for me to be observed closely or even have their picture taken...... And they (birds, lizzards....) do blend in perfectly as well, so they are really really hard to see.
When I finally got to the bus stop where I was supposed to catch a bus going back into town I could not find the numbers from my Sydney guide on the list of busses stopping at that particular stop.... Taking busses is quite convenient, but also really hard if you don't know where you're going.... I don't know how other tourists do it, because on the bus you can't really tell where you are and you never know when the next stop comes up and what it is going to be. The bus ride was quite adventurous as well. I have mentioned before that the bus drivers seem to be pretty ruthless drivers.... Today one bus drive came so close to our bus that it tore off the mirror.... We all had to get off the damaged bus and onto the next one.... And I only knew where to get off, because I knew once we had crossed the Sydney harbour bridge that I was close to circular cay where the bus to Randwick leaves..... So I took the next stop after we had crossed the bridge, then got my map out and figured out where I was....