When you’re looking for a trail run not really far away from the city, it’s a bliss to live in a city like Sydney. Sydney provides many small pockets of nature that enable the beginner to intermediate trail runners to enjoy their running without the need for a complete day trip. While I’m not sure if it’s an official definition, at Trail43 we call this Urban Trail Running.
Urban Trail Running for us is finding a slightly challenging nature trail in an urban area. And while this might sound a bit like a contradiction, Manly Dam is one of those areas which proves that running in the city doesn’t have to be on concrete.
The Manly Dam Trail is a 7-kilometer run around the, well, you guessed it, Manly Dam. It’s green, often a bit muddy, and slightly hilly with a few good climbs. The trail consists of narrow paths combined with fire trails/mountain bike paths and brings you past a few small waterfalls on the way.
While the run at Manly Dam starts at the concrete parking lot, the path quickly makes you forget you’re in Sydney. Depending on which direction you run, the path starts on a few boardwalks, but after only a few 100 meters we leave them behind us and the terrain is rough, rocky, wet, and great to be on.
The single-track trail takes us past a small creek to several small waterfalls, which on wet days are still quite impressive. After a few kilometers, it’s tempting to cross the mountain bike path, but unfortunately, that way is mostly a dead end. I found out the hard way, and if I have one specialty, it’s running the wrong direction. At the crossroads, the single track turns into a wider fire trail, with a few good climbs. While this part of the path is shared with the mountain-bikers, this is one of the few places in Sydney which has an absence of road rage, and the two disciplines use the path in harmony.
The rest of the track brings us along the lake, a small path, and depending on the weather and the mud provides good opportunities to pick up the pace. Manly Dam, at times, makes you feel like flying, and we took that literally, so check out the drone shots of our finish on the dam!
