Silly After Action Report - Able at Cesaro

 Tenente Dino Ingraziani cursed as he struggled with the entrenching tool. The hard Sicilian soil resisted his not particularly enthusiastic attack. All around him carabinieri were similarly engaged in an attempt to rearrange the landscape. One of them in a foxhole up to his neck was using a teaspoon to artistically arrange the dirt on the rim into animal shapes. "Oh for god's sake," snarled Ingraziani looking at his own pitiful scrape. "Were you a landscape gardener in a previous life?"

"For heaven's sake keep your voice down Ingraziani," Snapped the maggiore, "the whole point is that the Americans don't know we're here."

"What Americans?" demanded Ingraziani lowering his voice to a whine. For answer the maggiore pointed over the top of the hill to where a virtual sea of olive green was deploying in the distance.  Ingraziani felt ill. He cast a resentful glance at the field phone operators lounging on the top of the hill.  One of them was speaking urgently into the receiver.  Feeling Ingraziani's gaze on him he glanced up.

"I'm just ordering pizza, does anybody want anything?"

I recently acquire ASL Annual '90 after many years and was giddy to try the Italian scenarios therein. Scenting an easy victory my opponent Dave was more than ready to pander to what is, to be honest, one of the more socially acceptable of my fetishes. So here it is, Scenario A13 - Able at Cesaro.  I command a batch of Italian carabinieri who will absolutely not be doing what their historical predecessors did in real life as I attempt to deny possession of an apparently precious Sicilian hill to Dave's 47th Infantry.

To win Dave has to capture five of seven level 3 hill hexes after having panted across the width of two and a half boards to get there.  His force is impressive; 18 first line squads led by four officers including a doughty 9-2. He also has a heavy machine gun, three medium machine guns, two 60mm mortars (all dismantled at the start) and four bazookas. He also has two jeeps. My force looks impressive on paper until you remember that they're Italian.  I have twenty first line squads led by four officers including a somewhat less than doughty 8-1. I have four light machine guns, two medium machine guns, a pair of 45mm mortars and 48 factors of anti personnel mines.  I also have two field phones connecting me to two separate modules of 80mm mortar artillery.  The four leaders is somewhat less impressive when you realise that two of them are required to man the phones (what is this a battle or a telethon?).  I can set up on boards two and thirteen and can HIP five squads plus the usual assortment of hangers on but only on board two.

Below is my set up including minefields.  My plan was basically have a few speed bumps up front so he couldn't just pour down the board, then a second line to delay him further as he crossed the stream and approached the hill.  My final line of defence was behind the ridge beyond the reach of his firepower. I would dig foxholes there and hopefully sweep the Americans off the ridge with pointblank fire and reoccupy at the last moment for the win.  The two field phones I set up on the ridge to rain death down on the approaching Americans.  If I had checked a weather report I would have seen that the death was only raining one way.  I wasn't very keen about setting up on the ridge itself as I felt American firepower would handily sweep me off it before I could impose any serious check on him.  In this I was absolutely right.  Unfortunately to be useful the field phones had to set up somewhere they could see the enemy.

My set up

 

Before we start the AAR proper let's just get the artillery out of the way now.  It won't take long.  In the early turns as Dave advanced I dialled up my mortar batteries and placed a couple of spotting rounds.  In return Dave fired one of his mortars at my left hand field phone, scored a critical hit and broke, wounded and ELRed the officer manning it.  I was annoyed but not disheartened I still had one left.  In the next turn the officer manning that phone rolled an 11 and malfed the phone.  My annoyance increased and disheartenment was certainly knocking on the door.  The 7-0 manning the now malfed field phone ran across the ridge to man the first field phone whereupon Dave scored another critical hit with his mortar killing the officer and destroying the phone.  I got not a single fire mission out of either phone and lost two officers into the bargain (ok the first one survived but you'd be amazed how useless a 5-2 leader is). Disheartenment had arrived and was unpacking its bags.  Dave's mortars made the ridge unliveable.  Towards the end of the game desperate to have something to fire on his advancing horde I moved a concealed squad with a 45mm mortar up onto the ridge.  Whereupon Dave scored another critical hit with his mortar and that was the end of that.  The really annoying thing is that Dave managed that inbetween breaking his mortars (although they were rapidly repaired) and sitting under a fusillade of sniper fire which dismanned his mortars more than once.  My sniper number was four and when Dave wasn't rolling snake eyes he was rolling a lot of fours.

So onto the AAR which after that intro shall be mercifully brief. 

Dave's initial moves were cautious and well spread out to avoid giving any targets to my artillery.  There was little firing except on the left where a squad and a 45mm mortar team covered themselves with what could be mistaken for glory in a dim light. The rest of my troops frantically dug foxholes as the olive tide approached. Dave's jeeps sped forward (looking for minefields as he later explained).

This was early in the game and I still had hope that my artillery would play a role. The clutch of troops in the lane on the left includes his mortar teams.

By turn three Dave knew he had nothing to fear from my artillery and got the bit between his teeth.  He assembled a pair of kill stacks which could move with virtual impunity.  His machine guns he combined with a trio of squads and his 9-2 leader for a 30FP kill stack.  It was like being hit in the face with a slab of lead.  On the plus side my sniper got his first result, seriously my sniper was the one high point of the game for me it went off virtually every time Dave rolled a four and he rolled a lot of them.

No longer frightened of my artillery the Americans regroup

It has to be said that my outpost line and my first line of resistance did everything that could be expected of them.  They huddled inside stone buildings or foxholes and took their shots.  A trickle of broken American units moved backwards and more importantly the forward movement of the others was delayed as they winkled the carabinieri out of their lairs. Nevertheless by turn five he was across the stream and pressing forward.  His 9-2 kill stack was stripping any hex it fired at of all life and now he had troops to burn.

Here they come

One of his halfsquads plunged into CC with a particularly stubborn defender and when they couldn't get the job done in melee Dave simply hosed them all down with a 30FP attack.  By the end of turn 6 Dave had a foothold on the hill and was eyeing the summit with anticipation.

The concealed Italian units on the hill on the left is my mortar team. They will not last long

One of Dave's squads walked into a minefield giving me a brief moment of pleasure but other than that it was all one way traffic as he gathered his troops for the final assault.  I for my part eyed my troops hidden behind the ridge.  My best leader was here in a foxhole with a squad and an mmg.  The other squads had lmgs and could muster what for the Italians was decent firepower, at least at close range.

 

Dave is readying for the final push and yes I am still trying to dig a foxhole on the right

With manpower to burn Dave decided "to hell with subtlety" and pushed his forces up onto the ridge trusting that feeble Italian firepower would not be able to eliminate them all.  His trust was not misplaced.

I have one chance left...

 

With American troops on the victory locations it was time for my plan to prove its worth.  If I couldn't break an appreciable amount of the attackers their return fire would certainly annihilate me.  I took a few shots with mixed results but did at least manage to break up a couple of potential firegroups.  And finally it came down to the two leaders facing each other.  My 8-1 guiding an mmg squad hit his 9-2 kill stack with a six flat shot, and rolled an eleven breaking the mmg and what little was left of my spirit.  I gave Dave the concession.  There was nothing more I could do, he had enough remaining firepower to kill my troops through lead poisoning if nothing else.

Strangely I actually enjoyed this game.  I was not displeased with my play (except my minefield set up could have been better) and despite the total failure of the artillery managed to put up some sort of a defence (ably assisted by my sniper).  Many thanks to Dave for the game and because I am a depraved masochist (one of my slightly less socially acceptable fetishes) we will be playing Monastery Hill next.

Tenente Ingraziani blundered through the trees arms swiping wildly at branches that tore at his uniform and threatened to impede his path.  "What the hell is this?" he demanded as another branch hit him in the face.

"An olive grove," replied a soldier next to him.

"How do you know?"

"I was a landscape gardener in a previous life."

Silly After Action Report - A Sophoclean Tragedy

 "So, we're fighting Greeks, allied with other Greeks in an attempt to capture Athens from the Greeks and give it back to the Greeks.  Is that a reasonable assessment of the situation?" Captain Roderick Forster-Children looked at the written orders in his hand with a certain amount of distaste.  The colonel sighed, 

"I don't know if its a reasonable assessment but its pretty much accurate," he replied.  "Just get on with it will you?  A bunch of paras are holed up in a building and if we don't move now the Greeks will overrun them.  Don't worry about reinforcements, I'm giving you some Greeks."

"Which Greeks?"

"Those Greeks," said the colonel pointing.  A body of men, definitely Greek, were gathering outside.

"Are they on our side?" asked Foster-Children nervously.

"In a fast moving war like this who can tell."

Dave and I have been playing a few scenarios from Hazardous Movement "Uncivil Wars" pack.  This one pits British troops (and a few Greek hangers on) against the Communist (but definitely Greek) ELAS as they attempt to liberate Greece, for the right type of Greeks of course.  A bunch of British paratroopers (assault engineers and commandos but subject to ammo shortage) are trapped in a few buildings while with ELAS fighters attempt to convince them of the error of their ways in supporting the imperialist, capitalist running dogs.  Meanwhile another group of British (along with some of the aforementioned running dogs) are ploughing through stone buildings in a rescue attempt hampered by another group of ELAS fighters who are tripping them up and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  I have the Greeks (ie ELAS) in this one and Dave has the predominantly British but slightly Greek.  

Set up is sequential.  First I set up my para busters.  I have sixteen partisan squads (eight 527s and eight 337s) with two medium machine guns (Russian and so heavy they can barely move), two light machine guns, a pair of demo charges, an antitank rifle and two Mol projectors carted by crews.  Leadership is provided by three officers led by a 9-1.  Then Dave set up his beleaguered paratroopers; six 648 squads, a mighty 10-2 leader, two light machine guns and a borrowed American bazooka. Sixteen concealment counters aid in misdirection.  Third I set up my blocking force, tasked with holding off the British (and Greek, don't forget the Greek) reinforcements. This force has another eleven squads (eight 337s and three 527s), a medium machine gun, two light machine guns, a 50mm mortar, a demo charge and another Mol projector.  Three more officers command including a 10-0 commissar.  They also have eight concealment counters and a roadblock.  Finally Dave's remaining forces set up. Nine first line squads, three British leaders headed by a 9-1 collectively equipped with a hmg, mmg and three lmgs.  Eager to show they're helping the not necessarily Communist Greeks have contributed three and a half squads with a demo charge and a leader of their very own.  On turn three a pair of Sherman tanks roll on to give some added firepower to Dave's attack.  Dave can deploy all of his paras and I can HIP three squads.  We each forgot these particular wrinkles.  Finally each side can fortify one building location. This at least we did remember.

So my job was to overrun the British paras while my blocking force heroically fended off his reinforcements.  My assault units had to set up in buildings.  There was literally nowhere for them to go except directly into the face of his fire.  I duly fortified a building location I thought would be useful and packed it with troops, I put a crew with a mol projector on the roof in the hopes of shooting down onto a Sherman.

End of turn 1

 

My first turn went about as well as one could expect.  My brave partisans charged forward and were broken but in the process revealed Dave's troops.  His forgetting to deploy meant that his front line was thinner than it should be and over the next couple of turns I was able to wangle his paras out of their forward defensive line.  Over in rescue city Dave's reinforcements eased slowly forward, breaking any partisans to foolish to run the moment they came into view.  Still my main line of resistance hadn't been reached yet although my mortar crew had been terrified into abandoning their weapon and hiding in some nearby trees.

End of Allied turn 2 - check out the turn counter :)

Dave's neglecting to deploy had allowed me to get into the forward building of his defensive zone but it also meant that I was facing full 648 squads as I attempted to get further.  With his rescuers getting closer I felt the pressure of time.  I also found his fortified position, a pair of squads and an lmg guided by the 10-2.  Over the next couple of turns Dave's reinforcements essentially dismantled my defences with the exception of my fortified location.  The only reason for his delay was his disinclination to go past it while a mmg, lmg and a mol projector were still sitting there to cause him grief. 

Down in para central I pressed my forces recklessly forward entering into hand to hand close combat and successfully killed a couple of para squads, closing in on his fortified building.  And there I stopped.  I assembled an awesome amount of firepower but partisans can't firegroup so my attacks degenerated into a series of 12+4 shots that required good luck to get a result. Things were made worse when in response to one such shot Dave's leader battle hardened and became an heroic 10-3.  Attempts to breach the fortified building with DCs came to nought.

Dave's Shermans rolled on and to my absolute delight my mol projector team on the roof put a bottle of flaming liquid through a Sherman sending it up in flames.  Sadly the other managed to drop a WP round into the building effectively neutralising my toughest remaining force.

A Sherman burns merrily and his paras are surrounded. This is about as good as it got for me

A word about my commissar "Useless bastard".  Ok that's two words which is two more than he deserves.  His principle contribution to the game was to casualty reduce two squads in rally attempts. Other than that he might as well have not been present.  Frankly I wished he wasn't.  With the units in my fortified building attempting to wash white phosphorous out of their eyes Dave's remaining Sherman and surviving reinforcements rushed past to bring succour to his paratroopers who in the meantime had simply stood in their fortified building and taken pretty much every shot I could make against them.

 

It took six turns but Dave has relieved his paratroopers and I am screwed

I gave Dave the concession with my remaining troops on the brink of disaster.  There were a couple of high points. Frying the Sherman was one and the fact that not one of the Greek allied troops survived was another but I have to admit I didn't really enjoy this game.  The only way of getting the paras out of that fortified building is to continually bash your head against a brick wall and hope it gives way before your head does.  If it doesn't you're stuck.  Once you've closed the ring around the paras there is nothing left to do except hope the dice will be kind.  Dave did enjoy this game but as the British he had more to do.  He needed to cling onto the paras original defensive position and also co-ordinate the relief attack.  Meanwhile I bashed my head against brick and hoped.

"Well done Forster-Child," said the colonel approvingly.  "The Greeks have suffered a serious blow today.  Have you told the Greeks?"

"I can't," replied Forster-Child, "they're all dead."  The colonel completely failed to look disappointed. "Excellent, carry on."

"Where?"

The colonel waved vaguely, "Over there somewhere."

 

"Jaws!" Or Possibly "Gums!"

 I have a new favourite sea creature.  While the octopus will always occupy a special place in my heart the magnificent Greenland shark now takes top billing among the damper animal varieties on the planet.  As the name implies Greenland sharks live in the icy waters of the Arctic ocean. They are in fact the apex predator of those chilly waters. A bulky animal, it is one of the largest shark species still living (except for the whale shark which I think we can all agree is the result of a serious pituitary imbalance) and it roams the frigid waters unafraid of competition. It roams those waters very slowly, the Greenland shark is not noted for its speed. In a strong current a Greenland shark would go backwards.

If a Greenland shark had starred in the movie Jaws that movie would have been eighteen hours long most of which would have consisted of Roy Schneider sitting in a boat looking at his watch as the Greenland shark made its laboured, asthmatic approach.  That's always assuming it attacked the right boat because thanks to a small crustacean that lives in its eyes the Greenland shark is almost blind.

Moving slowly seems to have its advantages. The Greenland shark is the worlds longest lived vertebrate. Greenland sharks have been caught with harpoons inside them from the whaling heyday of the 1800s.  They don't even become sexually active until they're past a hundred years old.  They also don't breed very much, well of course they don't; they're over a hundred years old.  Also due to their eyesight its entirely possible that some mating attempts are with submarines or suggestively shaped icebergs. The oldest known Greenland shark was dated at over 390 years old.

Greenland sharks upper teeth aren't very spectacular, they're thin and without serrations and really serve as anchors while the shark worries large chunks of its prey off with its bottom teeth.  So, to recap; the apex predator of the Arctic region is a slow, blind, geriatric with bad teeth.  You can't help feeling there weren't many applicants for the position of "Apex predator of the Arctic Ocean".  They eat minke whales, seals, fish, carrion and the occasional polar bear.  The question is "how?"  All of these things (even the carrion with a breeze behind it) is faster than the Greenland shark.  Scientific opinion isn't so much divided as somewhat bewildered.  The best explanation they can come up with is that the Greenland shark sneaks up on its prey while they're asleep or (in the case of carrion) dead.  My personal opinion is that from time to time a prey animal will hurl itself into the shark's jaws out of sheer pity.

There are virtually no recorded cases of Greenland sharks attacking humans largely because they live in the sort of waters that aren't conducive to swimming, or living.  Also if you're attacked by a Greenland shark a brisk dog paddle should be enough to effect your escape. 

Being slow, blind, rare etc. means that of course the Greenland shark is endangered.  The only surprise is that the species ever got going in the first place although to be fair it didn't get going very swiftly.  Another reason for their scarcity is that Icelanders like eating them.  Greenland shark flesh is actually toxic but unfortunately for the sharks they live next door to the Scandinavians who have a proud history of consuming inedible seafood.  Several months of fermentation are required before Greenland shark flesh is transformed from something disgusting and toxic into something that is merely disgusting.  As is usually the case when a people have been doing something disgusting and depraved for long enough it is now claimed to be part of Iceland's culture.  Apparently this is a good enough reason to keep doing it.  There are a few depraved and disgusting things I could probably culturally justify if it ever came to a court case.

So if you're ever in Arctic waters and you see something large, blind and slow vigorously gumming a polar bear to death you have encountered the fabled Greenland shark.  Say hello for me.

Travelling Pathetically - Unexpected Eel Edition

 After semi triumphantly completing a section of the Great North Walk the previous week I decided to build on that fungus ridden victory by going to the other extreme and doing a section of the "Great West Walk".  Being somewhat less blessed with hilly ground than Sydney's northern suburbs the western regions tend to have been built over to an extent that some would term maniacal.  Nevertheless a selection of parks, reserves and the occasional concrete lined creek have been somewhat tenuously linked together to form a walking trail. A fair amount of said walking trail is actually wandering through suburban streets where the most likely form of wildlife is out of control teenagers.  It does however cross the Western Sydney Parklands.  This is a large chunk of open land that has unaccountably not been built on yet.  Making a virtue of a coincidence the state government has turned the lot into "the Western Sydney Parklands" it is apparently one of the largest urban parks in the world. Excited reports on my trail app announced sightings of kangaroos so I knew straight away that I wasn't going to see those. My leech non-experience still burned in my brain.

The walk I selected took me from Blacktown railway station and after sixteen odd kilometres of suburban streets, random parks, shabby creeks and the vaunted Western Sydney Parklands finally spat me out at Rooty Hill station a little further up the line. I alighted at Blacktown, western Sydney's cultural mecca (no wait, that's the Rooty Hill RSL) and blundered around the station for fifteen minutes until my trail app graciously condescended to inform me that I was on the right track. The day was hot and I reached up to adjust my hat to discover that I had left it behind. My brain baked quietly in my skull as I set off.

Blacktown may not be a cultural Mecca but its doing its best to be a transport one

The first part of the walk was a tedious traipse down suburban streets interrupted when the "trail" crossed Blacktown showgrounds which has a fair bit of open space, the occasional tree and a wetland.  It isn't a natural wetland rather this is a stormwater filtration system which allows the otherwise grubby water to be used for such purposes as watering the showground. I don't know if these sort of environmental cleansing projects assist terribly much but they're certainly more appealing to walk across than a water treatment plant.  Plus I saw a dragonfly!

This is not a dragonfly, it is a pair of pointy headed pigeons (I may have clicked on the wrong photo)

 

Now this is a dragonfly

The pleasant haven provided by the showgrounds soon gave way to more suburban streets and busy main roads.  I choked on exhaust fumes and thought about trees as I plodded down the streets.  I was wearing hiking boots and carrying a backpack, other pedestrians looked at me as though I were mad.  Before I plunged back into semi-nature I encountered what must be one of the most dubiously named medical practices I've ever encountered.  The Lourdes Medical Centre.

The Lourdes Medical Centre

I love this as the name of a medical centre.  The marketing slogans write themselves; "Lourdes Medical Centre, if you survive it's a miracle" or possibly "Lourdes Medical Centre, place your faith in God, as opposed to our staff". The ensuing giggles (I am pathetically easy to amuse) kept me going through several kilometres of trudging along concrete footpaths veering occasionally into parks that resembled large lawns. 

I saw this from the street, my path didn't take me anywhere near it

The trail app had boasted of "remnant woodland" as a highlight of the walk.  As I trudged through a park I saw a tree.  I guess a tree counts as remnant woodland.

 

Remnant woodland

But the park had other attractions. A sudden commotion at ankle level brought my gaze down and I saw a pair of indian mynahs monstering a crane. The mynahs buggered off but the crane posed for a number of photos most of which weren't any good.

The best of some not terribly good crane photos

My mood was enhanced when I came across what could broadly be described as a creek. That is it was too wide to be a gutter and not deep enough to be a storm water channel. 

A creek, allegedly

 

A dragonfly hovering over the noxious waters

 

This was in fact Breakfast Creek, a watercourse that would be a largely absent companion for the next part of my walk.  The environmental report on Breakfast Creek makes rather depressing reading but still it was a waterway, trees lining its artificially enhanced banks.  My walk didn't take me near it, rather it paralleled the creek's course at sufficient distance to ensure none of the walkers would inadvertently drown. Eventually I got sick of this and plunged down a narrow side path that took me to the creek in all its scummy glory.

Breakfast Creek again. This is actually a rather flattering photo

I gazed at the murky waters. Then looked aside as more dragonflies disported themselves for my entertainment. A flicker of movement caught the corner of my eye and I turned just in time to see an eel sliding past a discarded shopping trolley. As I stared the eel broke the surface, writhing before sinking back into the water.  Sadly I had no time for a photo and the eel didn't reappear but my entire attitude towards Breakfast Creek was transformed.  I love me an eel and the presence of one in Breakfast Creek simply reinforces the sheer indestructibility of them as a species.  Incidentally the birds in the photo above made themselves scarce shortly afterwards.  The last time I saw the eel it was heading in their direction.

I spent a bit more time at the creek hoping the eel would return and failing to take photos of dragonflies.  Dragonflies are another one of my favourite bits of nature. I love the activity and the glittering colours.  The knowledge, recently gained, that they are murderously lethal predators only adds to their appeal.  Unfortunately they're not terribly easy to photograph.

Leaving aside Breakfast Creek I resumed my journey.  The plodding through suburbs was almost over as the park that Breakfast Creek infested led to the Western Sydney Parklands.  Well actually it led to Quakers Hill Parkway but that in turn led me to the parklands.  A neat sign announced my entry into this hallowed ground and straightaway things were different.  Open plains stretched before me with remnant woodland lurking at a discreet distance.  Even the human habitation took on a slight rural air with farming equipment and a horse that looked like it had been the subject of an unsuccessful mummification attempt.

A badly mummified horse

Stepping away from the suburbs I plunged into a reasonable approximation of nature. 

See, nature

There was a jauntiness to my exhausted stumble as I strolled through one of the biggest urban parks in the world.  There was plenty of open plain where kangaroos could frolic, none did so.  In the background the remnant woodland kept far enough away from the trail so that anybody walking with a chainsaw couldn't trip and accidentally cut down a tree.

Parkland, trees lurking at a safe distance

Another creek presented itself for my delectation, it didn't look much better than the previous one but was somewhat larger.  Going by my map I think this was Eastern Creek into which Breakfast Creek deposited its fetid waters a little further downstream.

Eastern Creek (I think)

 Incidentally can we have a word about our colonial forebears naming habits.  Breakfast Creek, Eastern Creek, they weren't exactly stretching the limits of their imagination were they?  At least I hope they weren't.

The sun beat down as I made my way through open parklands and the occasional motorway.  Wildflowers (at least I assume they were wild) grew among the grasses.  On the way I took a series of photos of bush with a tiny blue splodge in the middle of them.  These were a series of attempts to photograph the superb fairy wren a flighty little blue bird that behaves as though it has a severe amphetamine addiction.  I see them frequently on my walks and would love to get a photo but the most I've managed to achieve is random blue splodges.  

 

The best random blue splodge photo

I was heading towards the Nurragingy Reserve (now that's a name although knowing my luck it probably means "breakfast" in the local indigenous tongue).  Here the woodlands, creek and path had come together to provide a proper bush experience.  The locals had celebrated the fact by building a miniature railway, unfortunately it wasn't running the day I went. I also walked through the only natural wetland in the Blacktown region.  As is traditional boardwalks had been built so you didn't get your feet wet.  The other thing preventing your feet from getting wet was the absence of water.  I guess its been a dry Summer.

Dryland or at the very best dampland

 

Leaving behind the dryland I wandered out of the bush into a carpark.  The carpark was attached to an ornamental pond and a Chinese garden.  People thronged so I decided to leave but took a photo of some cute birds and an impressive duck before I did so.

A cute bird I think we can all agree

And that is quite an impressive duck

My journey wasn't over but the most interesting parts were.  Leaving the Chinese garden behind me I wandered on and wound up on a cycleway that paralleled the M7 motorway.  Once that was behind me I found myself in Rooty Hill and stumbled eagerly towards the train station and my ticket home.  I had walked the best part of seventeen kilometres and was definitely looking forward to a rest.  The train journey from Rooty Hill to Blacktown took all of four minutes.

 

Banging and Bouncing My Way to Castle Hill

 For those of you who glanced hastily at the title and anticipated a titillating and possibly even explicit account of my journey prepare to be disappointed.  Those of you who know me better will wonder why I was going to Castle Hill in the first place.  Well there was a modest bushwalk emanating from that august location so I called upon public transport to deliver me within shouting distance of its start.

The first mode of transportation that my government funded frustration service provided was a bus.  It shouldn't have been a bus but the government has recently shut down rail services to my inoffensive suburb while it readies the line for the sexy new metro trains which are soon* to be sweeping along it.  To compensate for the lack of trains they have very kindly persuaded a bunch of bus drivers to take batches of desperate commuters from a largely random street near (but not too near) the train station and dump them at Sydenham which is still blessed with rail access.

The buses are rather slick and sexy things, all automated voices and doors that hiss when they open.  I love a door that hisses when you open it.  There's just one problem, every time I stand up from my seat I bang my head on the roof.  This has happened so often now that if I was a footballer I would be sent from the field for a concussion test.  Actually if I were a footballer I would be sent from the field due to age, incompetence and general lack of fitness but a concussion test would definitely follow probably on the selector who sent me out onto the field in the first place.

The bus roof doesn't appear to be particularly low nobody, myself included has trouble standing in the aisle but yet the head thumping remains.  It's not as though I'm particularly tall, in fact "particularly tall" are two of the words most commonly not used to describe me along with "ruggedly handsome" and "probably sane".  I presume the bus has booster seats that project its passengers high into the air and prompt the less observant of their passengers to misjudge the distance between head and ceiling when rising to depart.

Once at Sydenham I fled the concussion bus rubbing my scalp and headed for the metro.  Sydenham is where the metro currently ends while they ready the line beyond.  A sleek gleaming metro arrives every few minutes to whisk its passengers to other points in Sydney at breakneck speed.  In fact its so good that in order to maintain passenger frustration levels at an appropriately high level the planners had to deliberately minimise the number of automatic gates offering entry to the station leading to a raving scrum at the entrance as far too many people attempt to enter and leave at the same time.

Assuming you survive the trip through the entrance gates (children and the elderly were being crushed underfoot as I entered) a very few minutes will see you stepping onto a driverless tube which is simultaneously Sydney's latest transport option and the government's most recent attempt to break the power of the transport union.  Inside seats apparently designed to accommodate an anorexic super-model (ie, any of them) have been placed along the walls of the carriage to prevent you looking out.  If you have eaten a meal in the last week you will not fit into these seats.

Once the doors slam the metro is off and it has to be admitted it is fast.  It zips along its designated track at speeds that leave staid, non-metro trains gasping with envy.  The journey is not however entirely smooth.  The metro is not a particularly comfortable ride.  It bounces and judders quite a bit as it eats up the track.  Once the harbour is crossed the juddering increases to the point where at least one passenger was concerned for the fillings in his teeth.  It wasn't doing my concussion any good either.  Still discomfort is compensated for by speed.  In an almost embarrassingly short time I was deposited in Castle Hill ready to commence by bushwalk.  The headspins, bleeding ears and sudden inability to see the colour blue were a small price to pay for such convenience.

* "soon" being a relative and flexible term which can mean anything between "tomorrow" and "Never, how dare you even ask you godforsaken peasant. Begone, your presence pollutes my sight!"

Travelling Pathetically - Fungus Frenzy

With apparently nothing else to do I took the train to Thornleigh in Sydney's leafy northern suburbs to hop on to the section of the Great North Walk that takes one from Thornleigh to Hornsby another suburb in Sydney's leafy northern suburbs. Generally speaking "leafy" means "wealthy" as the average income of a suburb's population can usually be derived from the number of trees that the developers permitted to remain standing.  In this case additional leafiness is gained by the fact that a lot of the land on either side turned out to be rather difficult to build on and therefore was classified as a national park in a traditional case of making a virtue out of a necessity.

As usual I needed to wander through the leafy streets of Thornleigh before I plunged behind someone's house and entered an area where leaves (and their associated trees) predominated.  I had looked up this walk on my trail app and had been encouraged by the enthusiastic reports of greenery, birds and wildlife.  A closer glance indicated that the wildlife was mainly leeches but I was encouraged nonetheless.  It has been a long time since I saw a leech.

 

Entry to the walk. No leeches yet but a brown parrot looking bird hiding behind the leaves

 

A creek almost immediately presented itself and I clumped along being as leech aware as possible.  For those of you who can't bear the suspense I have to say I didn't see a leech the entire journey.  Perhaps somewhat more encouragingly apparently they didn't see me.

A little creek

Soon leech disappointment would be driven from my mind.  As if to compensate for the absence of blood sucking invertebrates the bushland threw an absolute frenzy of fungus at me.  These had the advantage of being more photogenic and less likely to deprive me of vital fluids.  Things started modestly with a single glossy black mushroom (or toadstool or whatever) sitting in proud isolation beckoning me onwards.

 

Quite a handsome little chap

But this was a mere introduction to what turned out to be a riot of fungal profusion (there's a cream for that) which greeted me as I pushed further into the bush.  The next section of this entry is simply an orgy of fungus photos.  I didn't even bother giving the Clare McIntyre award; there were simply too many candidates.

 

 

 

Ok, I have to admit that I might have been getting a little obsessed by this point but the sheer number and variety of fungus and fungus related entities on offer was a little overwhelming.  At this stage you would be forgiven for thinking that I just went to a mushroom farm but no these presented themselves along my walk.

As for the walk itself the first half was little more than a fungus point to point.  On the occasions that I looked up from fungus photos the bush was its appropriate, appealing self.  The creek (or possibly another one) bubbled picturesquely and it was easy to forget it was largely stormwater and sewage overflow.  The term "stormwater" incidentally goes some way to explaining the profusion of fungi.  There had been a fair bit of rain recently and the fungi had taken full advantage.

The creek doing creeky things

 

Still the bush bushed around me as bush does inviting the occasional photograph as I attempted to overcome my fungus monomania.

Bush

As I carried on I noted the general downward nature of my progression and the dire warnings from the trail app reviews that the walk ended in a nasty set of steps to regain an altitude deemed suitable for the building of suburbs.  

Going down

 

I also noticed water dripping down my back.  I looked up but rain was nowhere in evidence.  Fishing in my backpack I discovered that I hadn't properly capped my water bottle and that half the precious fluid it contained (for the sake of a family friendly blog let's call it water) was now sloshing about in my pack.  Here's the strange thing about losing water.  I take a water bottle with me on these hikes but I don't generally drink all that much of it.  Now that water was scarce I found myself gripped with a frenzied desire for more of it.  My eyes were glazed, my tongue black and hanging out, no wait; that's the syphillis but you get the general idea.  From that point on fungus and water occupied my thoughts to the exception of everything else.  What made it worse was that as I descended further into the valley water was in abundance all around me.

Trickle

 

A more staid and sedentary body of water

It was while I was examining this water (and wondering if I dared drink any) that I saw it; red, round and glistening waiting for my approach.  I went into full leech defence mode running in tiny circles and trying (and failing) to scale a nearby tree until I realised it was a flower petal that was curled up and floating in the water.  One of the reasons why I walk by myself is so that there are fewer witnesses when I make an absolute idiot of myself.  I paused next to a nearby log to compose myself before carrying on.

A nearby log. The presence of fungus on it is a pure coincidence

 I was still heading down, the sound of gurgling water just out of reach tormenting me.  The scenery got more rainforesty and less Australian bushy (although to be fair the rainforest was also Australian bush) as I progressed.

I'd like to say I was using the contrast of light and shade to make an atmospheric photo but that's just what the light was like

 The gurgling of water was getting louder and I gurgled back in response.  Peering through the trees I could make out water thrashing itself into a frenzy as it poured over obdurate rocks on its way to the sea.  At least I assume that's where it was going, it seemed like a safe bet at the time.

Water through the trees

I stumbled towards the sound of cool sweet water (I still had some in my water bottle but by now I was in the grips of obsession) pausing only to take a photo of a small compliant lizard along the way.  Lizard photos had been notable by their absence so far, that was about to change.

 

A small lizard

I needed to cross the stream, fortunately there were conveniently placed rocks.  Unfortunately they were somewhat slippery due to the water flowing over them something I discovered as I crossed, fortunately not fatally.  Once safely across I laved my arms in the water (honestly I don't know why I'm not riddled in parasites) but wasn't quite stupid enough to drink any of it.

 

Warning, rocks may be slipperier than they appear

I was on the last stage of my journey now.  Hornsby beckoned and I set forth with renewed confidence, a spring in my stride.  Naturally I managed to wander off the path and get a little lost.  A lizard sunning itself on a rock looked with bemusement as I blundered past swearing and staring at my trail app.

 

If you're wondering why I took so many photos of this particular lizard its because I blundered past him several times as I walked in circles attempting to find my way back to the trail I was supposed to be following.  I'm surprised he didn't report me for curb crawling.

Eventually a helpful arrow appeared on a rock and pointed me in the right direction.  I made my way along and emerged in a park in Hornsby. I rested and refilled my water bottle but I wasn't done yet. With eleven or so kilometres under my belt I now faced the Hornsby Heritage Steps.  These were carved during the depression in the 1930s as part of that era's work for the dole scheme they connected the park with Hornsby proper inconveniently located someway above.  I didn't set any land speed records, indeed at some points I am pretty sure I was going backwards.  Still I gasped, panted, retched and planted one trembling foot in front of another until I reached the top to discover that I had several hundred metres of street to traverse before I encountered anything as useful as a railway station.  Somehow I made it and collapsed gasping onto the platform.  Concerned onlookers completely failed to gather around me so I eventually got up and caught the train home.