Lyrebird Track

Seven days ago more than 4 inches of rain fell on the suburb between 1030 in the morning and dinner time. Today the creeks are back to normal but the thrumming of insects in the canopy is a hard, driving buzz and the reptiles are out and about in a warm, damp and sometimes sodden bushscape. We were alert for snakes but fortunately saw none – but five or six water dragons of various sizes. It’s been three weeks since we have been out. Some of us have to confess to creaking joints – out of form already. But 11km on a hot sunny day in four hours was a reasonable effort on what is graded a “hard” track. And we took the time to “smell the roses”.

Great North Walk

The Great North Walk is great because it starts in Sydney and not because it links you to Newcastle 200km away. Sorry Novacastrians, cheap shot. We knocked off 10km of it today - from Thornleigh to Lane Cove. Here are all the usual sights and sounds of walking through the Sydney bush, though on this leg the M2 motorway is not too far away so we caught the sound of the occasional Harley running away from the speed cameras. Always alert to something different (apart from adders or red bellied blacks) we were struck today by the high quality graffiti under the Bridge. This is not exactly in the middle of suburbia but I guess someone just could not resist those grey concrete slab canvasses crying out for some work.

Governor Phillip Track

Somehow summer snuck into spring and thirty degrees or more baked Sydney today. But for the best part of the afternoon we hardly noticed as we plugged along the Governor Phillip track through cool thermals of fern moist air, to the background tune of water spilling over rocks and sucking along fallen logs. Though all that was thundered out at one point as a chopper hauled in on us to pick up water. It repeated the exercise a few times and once we had made higher ground we could see smoke threatening houses on a far ridge. A 15km walk  - our initial warm up for a crack at Kokoda in twelve months time!

Tourist in Sydney

Occasionally we have attempted to be a tourist in our own town but we usually stagger to a hotel, collapse, have a late breakfast on the sidewalk and then head home feeling somewhat cheated and resolved to be more “touristy”next time. This morning I walked with some friends along 10km of track only minutes from home. It’s perhaps the best result of checking out my own town in a long time. Read more