A cloudy (but warm) day playing at Forty Baskets Beach in Sydney, Australia

Hi Steemit!

This is my first post to #steemit and I thought I should share with you some photos from my little adventure today in the great outdoors, coming to you all the way from beautiful Sydney, Australia (down under)!

We had planned this little outing for a few days, and every day was perfectly sunny leading up to our little adventure, except for this one (isn't it always the way!?), so I apologise in advance for the cloudy weather. The photos obviously would have turned out a lot better on a sunny day, but that wasn't enough to stop us! Actually, it was still really warm at ~20°c.

-- Storm clouds brewing off the coast and beyond Manly Beach - always time for a panorama!

Forty Baskets Beach is a quiet little spot, just north of Sydney. A 20 minute drive from the centre of the city, and nestled among lush nature reserves, palm trees, multi-million dollar waterfront homes and priceless water views.

-- A panorama of the view from Forty Baskets Beach, near Manly in Sydney Australia

Forty Baskets Beach sits quietly, and unassumingly, directly opposite Sydney’s more ‘famous’ - Manly Beach (which was was named by Capt. Arthur Phillip for the indigenous people living there. Philip wrote that "the indigenous people's confidence and manly behaviour made me give the name of Manly Cove to this place”).

Forty Baskets Beach is often overlooked by tourists when they visit Sydney.

From Forty Baskets Beach, you can see the main headland of Sydney Harbour. 228 years ago, English sailors in the First Fleet arrived in their boats after ~8 months at sea when they finally made it safely into Sydney Harbour. What a welcoming site this must have been for them.

Sydney Harbour would have been a perfect location for the tired sailors. There were freshwater streams, wildlife, and the large, sheltered harbour provided ample protection from the ocean wind and sea swells, which had battered the sailing crew for months on end during their voyage from Portsmouth England, which began in May of 1787 and, eventually ended with their arrival into Sydney Harbour on January 26th, 1788, and in doing so colonised a new country - Australia!

You can see where Forty Baskets Beach is in this map below (solid red dot). It is located just to the south-west of the more well-known Manly Beach, and north-east of the main city centre of Sydney. I'll be honest though, this entire area near that red dot is littered with gorgeous, secluded beaches, and still so close to the city! Try and keep it a bit of a #steemit secret though. ;)

-- Location of Forty Baskets Beach, relative to Sydney city. Source: Google maps

Today though, we weren’t looking for the big crowds, instead, we wanted to get away from the crowds. In particular, we wanted a nice and quiet beach all to ourselves where we could enjoy some simple fresh ocean air and the (limited) sunshine without the hassle and drama that the more popular beaches can bring sometimes in a city the size of Sydney (population ~5m).

-- Ahh, fresh ocean sea breeze, peace, quiet, and a beautiful shot of Diana

The only sounds to be heard were the waves softly lapping against the seashore. Beautiful!

-- Completely empty, not one person was swimming here today!? We basically had the beach all to ourselves.

We lazed about a bit and soaked in the relaxing atmosphere. It was a beautiful day just to hang out and admire the views on offer.

-- Doing it tough hey Diana? :P

It was pretty hard to move from this spot. Entirely stressful, let me tell you. It was tough, really tough. Someone has to do it though, right!?

-- Her view. Ashame it was not all blue skies and water today. Oh well...

After lounging around and being totally stressed about our situation :P, we were getting pretty hungry so it was getting time to move on.

Here is Diana saying hello to #steemit! I realised when I got home, we really should have written this in the sand! Oh well, something to remember for next time!

-- We made this little sign to give a big shout out to #steemit! :)

I hope you enjoyed our little adventure to Forty Baskets Beach in Sydney, Australia.

-- It was time to go. Note how the sand was still a little wet? It rained the night before. :(

Hopefully next time I venture out, the sun will be shining and I can produce much more colourful and vibrant pictures (I apologise for the general washed out colours, with my main camera battery dead, and dark storm clouds looming threateningly in the sky, it was hard at times to get some really nice shots).

Well, ok, not that hard… ;)

-- Hola bella! Linda Diana at Forty Baskets Beach in Sydney! :D

---

I want to introduce #steemit to the beautiful natural surroundings in Sydney. So I hope you enjoyed seeing some of Diana's travel adventures today in Sydney. If you do like what you see here, let me know with an upvote, and if you would like to see more of my posts in the near future, don't forget to follow me so you don't miss out on my next blog post on #steemit!

---

Until next time #steemit, ciao!