When you think of Manly, you’ll probably be thinking: stunning beach, hip cafes and chilled coastal vibes. However, it may come as a surprise that this suburb also has one of Sydney’s best bushwalks!

A visit to Manly Dam makes for a great day out if you combine the beautiful Lake Circuit with a bit of wild swimming or have a family picnic complete with firepit (although the picnic spots are outrageously expensive but more on that later).

If you hang around until the late afternoon you might even get lucky and spot some of the shy and very cute Swamp Wallabies.

So here everything you need to know about Manly Dam and one of the best bushwalks in Sydney.

Everything you need to know about Manly Dam

Manly Dam is a heritage listed former dam in the Northern Beaches, just a short distance from the beachside town of Manly. Built in 1892 by the New South Wales Government, Manly Dam was created to service the Manly area and the rapidly growing surrounding suburbs.

Whilst it is still owned by Sydney Water, it is now mainly known for its beautiful reservoir/lake, and pretty bushland, popular with families, hikers and mountain bikers.

Here’s a few things you’ll want to know about Manly Dam before you go:

It’s expensive

First up is the exorbitant prices for just about anything. It’s a shame to start with this, but we still can’t get over the costs of just about anything at Manly Dam:

Parking - $8-10 per hour (which is more than Sydney CBD or Bondi Beach) - we have a tip for avoiding this at the end of the blog!
Picnic benches - Yes they charge for a picnic bench here and it is far from cheap. A standard picnic table (I can’t believe I’m writing this) costs $48 per day, and an undercover picnic table costs $70!

The picnic areas

Whilst it is crazily expensive, the picnic areas at Manly Dam are lovely. There are four areas to choose from, and you can find out the exact details about each area here, but we liked the one at Picnic Area Section 4 (which sounds a little bit Hunger Gamesy for my liking) they come with firepits, as well being tucked away on a quiet part of the lake where you can swim.

Picnic Area Section 1 is probably the best if you have kids as there’s a playground, electric barbecues and swimming access, and it’s close to the entrance of Manly Dam.

If the price hasn’t put you off, you will need to book a picnic bench in advance. You can do it by filling in this form and sending it off to the council. There are only 30 picnic tables, so you will want to book in advance, especially if you plan on going at the weekend in summer!

Other activities you can do

You can go swimming in the dam, but it’s best to stick to the designated area as this will be free of boats or anything else. You can find it by picnic areas 3 & 4. The exact location is on this map.

It’s also popular with mountain bikers who can start outside the park and avoid the fees involved with parking. You can only cycle clockwise and the track is about 11km long.

You can also go fishing with a NSW recreational fishing license here, as well as water ski between picnic areas 2 and 3.

Bushwalks

There are eight bushwalks in total at Manly Dam, ranging from the Wildflower Walk at 350m long, to the Park Circuit Track (at 8.3km long - that’s 1km longer than the sign as measured by our watch!).

If you can stretch to just over 8km of walking, we highly recommend doing the Park Circuit Track. It includes the Nature Trail and Wildflower Walk and will take you right round the lake, through beautiful bushland, past two waterfalls and you may even see a wallaby or two like we did! It is one of the best walks in Manly and well worth checking out.

So here’s a description of the beautiful Park Circuit Walk

The Manly Dam Walk - the Park Circuit

The stats

Distance: 8.3km (1km more than the sign says)
Elevation: 191m
Difficulty: Easy
Type of trail: Circuit

How to stay on the trail

Whilst this is a popular track, staying on the trail isn’t quite as easy as you think! We recommend trying to follow the trail on Google Maps, as it’s surprisingly accurate. If you can match this to the map we’ve created below you shouldn’t go wrong.

Keep an eye out for the red arrows, orange posts or any mention of the Park Circuit, Nature Trail or Wildflower Walk.

The turn which catches most people out is the creek crossing to the fire trail on the other side of the dam. We’ll tell you all about that in this post.

Starting the trail - The Nature Trail

The great thing about the circuit track is that you cover many of the other trails as well, starting with the Nature Track.

The signposting is pretty poor throughout though, so it’s worth taking a screen shot of our notes or taking a photo of the map on the info board when you arrive and following it closely.

The walk begins by heading straight uphill on the Nature Track and it definitely feels like you’ve entered the bush from the off. After 100m turn right to continue on the circuit track before taking the left fork 130m later.

You’ll continue along a pretty bush track with lots of craggy overhangs. There are some interesting signs which point out the Indigenous significance of the area which are interesting to read throughout the walk.

After just under 500m you’ll reach a long staircase, at this point it looks like the trail continues straight on but it doesn’t, you do need to carry on up the staircase.

The craggy rocks made me feel like I was walking in a national park, rather than a reserve so close to Manly!

Hiking through the bushland at Manly Dam

Once you get to the top of the staircase you’ll get your first views of Manly Dam from above. It is partially obscured by trees but it’s a really lovely view and the water looked incredibly blue from up there.

You’ll continue on a flat section of track before coming to yet another junction where you could go wrong! You’ll want to head right down the staircase, towards the dam and then right again a couple of hundred metres later to stay on the Nature Track.

It’s a good place to spot the Eastern Water Dragons, but unfortunately we didn’t get lucky on our visit.

It’s not long before you make a left turn onto the Wild Flower Track which I’m sure is beautiful in spring, but we were here in winter so we didn’t see it at its best!

Heading along the Dam

The next section is our favourite part of the walk where you will follow the water for much of the way. We stopped to walk down to the water by the picnic area (number 4) which offers a beautiful view of the dam and had so much birdlife, including some beautiful Black Swans. This was the point at which we were planning to return for a picnic before later finding out the cost!!

Continuing back on the circuit and you’ll walk along some pretty boardwalk with lots of lush vegetation and great water views.

The trail is completely flat for roughly the next 1.5km so it’s very easy and relaxing and there is no chance of making a wrong turn for the next couple of kilometres which is a bonus!

This whole section of the trail is gorgeous, from the great views, to all the ferns and pretty forest. You’ll pass a tiny cascade which we took to be ‘the waterfall’ of the track which we had a good laugh at until we realised later that it wasn’t!

Waterfalls and wallabies

The actual waterfall is a little further along the trail and more impressive than we were expecting, with a lovely pool at the base.

We might have got lucky as it’s been quite wet lately, but the flow was pretty good and it’s a nice spot to take in the tranquil nature of the bush.

Just after the waterfall we were lucky enough to see two Swamp Wallabies. I get just as excited at seeing them now as I did the very first time, particularly because I thought the chances of seeing one here was really slim. This little pocket of wilderness in an otherwise fairly built up area is full of surprises!

They were both very shy and bounced straight off but it definitely made my day! I saw a runner just after and he said he sees them here often so keep an eye out around this section of the walk!

A few hundred metres after the main waterfall and just off to the right of the track there’s another smaller waterfall, you won’t see it unless you wander just off the trail but you’ll hear it and know when to turn. It’s well worth the 30 second detour to check it out.

The turning you don’t want to miss

There’s just under 500m walking through the bush before you have one major turning to make, and this is the one that often throws people off.

When you get to the fork marked with red arrows you need to cross over the creek. It’s easy and there are dry patches so you don’t need to worry about wet boots!

Finishing the circuit

The next part of the walk is on fire trail but there is pretty forest on both sides so it’s not too bad. You’ll have a couple of steepish climbs, followed by some flat walking again. We noticed this was also a mountain bike track but happily we didn’t see any!

After just over a kilometre you’ll come to an orange post on the right and that will take you back into the bush. The track heads downhill, at first on a rocky path before it flattens out on boardwalk.

The walk on the eastern side of Manly Dam

Look out for a turning on your right which will take you back along the waters edge, first on boardwalk and then on bush track.

It’s a lovely end to the walk to be back by the water again and it won’t be long before you cross over the dam.

To do this you need to go through two gates which close daily at 5.30pm, which we hadn’t realised but luckily got in four minutes before they locked the gate! Talk about perfect timing!

Essential information about visiting Manly Dam

Parking for Manly Dam

Parking at Manly Dam is pricey, ranging from $8 an hour in the low season to $10 an hour in high season (ouch!).

However, if you’re willing to walk another 350 metres each way, you can park outside of Manly Dam completely free for as long as you want. We parked on the corner of Arana Street (exact location on this link) and it was a five minute walk to the entrance of the park.

Getting to Manly Dam by public transport

Unfortunately, there is no public transport that goes direclty to Manly Dam.

The closest is the B Line bus that has a stop that is 20 minutes away from the entrance to the park. The B1 bus runs from Wynyard in the centre of Sydney and stops at Manly Vale on A8. You can walk to Manly Dam from here.

Manly Dam opening hours

Manly Dam is open from 7am to 5.30pm daily, or 8.30pm during daylight savings. If you park outside the gates you can still enter and exit the dam but you can’t walk across the dam itself which requires going through two locked gates.

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