Travelling Pathetically - Manly Dam Edition

 For more than fifty years I have managed to go through life without realising that Manly had a dam.  Well no longer, half a century of ignorance has been redressed in one afternoon.  Manly, a suburb so close to the sea that sometimes it seems that a benevolent god will wash it into the ocean, has a hinterland and lurking in that hinterland is a dam.  Surrounding that dam, at a discreet distant, are a bunch of other suburbs providing an over inhabited shield behind which the dam and its adjacent bushland dwell unseen.  For the uninitiated there is simply a green patch on the map amongst the suburbs which, unaccountably has not been turned into a golf course.

Manly dam followed the usual progress for dams.  Drinking water was required, a dam was built, people poured run off into the dam, the water became undrinkable, a different dam was built elsewhere.  Seriously it would appear that the human race has two basic impulses when it comes to water supply, the first is to drink from it and the second is to crap into it.  At least I hope the impulses came in that order.  In keeping with a third impulse humans have relating to water which is to pollute the water, wait a decent interval and then play in it Manly dam or rather the lake behind it now hosts swimmers, kayakers and all those for whom immersion in a semi noxious soup is the definition of a good time.  Various animals also drink there because let's face it they have very little choice.

A walk around the dam's environs has been teased for more than a year but something keeps getting in the way; bad weather, inconvenient timing, sheer lack of interest.  Now however the walk would occur.  One of the friends I have been walking with before (not the psychopath, the other one) currently has a home which is quite convenient to the dam (and absolutely nothing else).  He invited me to wander around the dam with him and afterwards the bait of dinner at his house was dangled.  To sweeten the pot he waxed lyrical about the wildlife surrounding the dam.  Cockatoos, swamp wallabies, kookaburras and an air breathing fish that climbs up waterfalls would be just some of the animals I wouldn't see on our walk.

My friend, whose name is Jason incidentally, lives in Freshwater.  Freshwater is what Harbord renamed itself when the occupants decided to get a name appropriate to the burgeoning property values.  Nobody's going to buy an expensive house in boring old Harbord but in exciting, sexy Freshwater the sky is the limit.  From my home at the epicentre of the universe travelling to Harb, sorry Freshwater is like journeying to a third world country.  I knew I was getting close when I passed the lice clinic.  Have spent longer in travelling than I did on my last holiday I finally arrived at his door only about ten minutes late which I attributed to having to fight off an attack of native tribesmen along the way.

With tedious preliminaries like greetings and polite chit chat dealt with as swiftly as possible we headed damwards.  The endless vista of houses and golf courses fell away and suddenly we were in a valley full of water, said water being prevented from pouring into nearby dwellings by the somewhat geriatric Manly dam.

As threatened, Manly dam

It was a pleasant day and people were out recreating on the dam as the above photo proves.  Jason and I turned our backs on such irritating signs of human existence and plunged into the bush.  Actually what we plunged into was a series of steps leading upwards through what had been bush before the last hazard reduction got away from them and was now largely stumps and cinders.  The bush was recovering as bush tends to do if you leave it alone for a while and Jason promised that further down the path would be bush that looked more, well, alive.

Somewhat charred but definitely bush

Our journey would be a seven kilometre circumnavigation of the lake but rather than just wander around the water's edge like a pair of losers we would climb above the lake, wander through the bush, descend to the lake, ascend again before finally returning to water level at the end.  Our walk basically described a circular sine wave.

I had warned Jason that I liked to amble and take photos which he indicated that he was fine with.  Both of us are now in our fifties and vigorous exercise has a slightly different definition to that it might have had thirty years ago.  With the warning given and acknowledged I took full advantage to record my journey in pictures.

One of said pictures

A series of creeks feed into the dam (well the lake behind the dam) and we would pass over and by a number of them.  Jason waxed lyrical about the wildlife while simultaneously acknowledging that most of the wildlife tended to keep to those creeks that were rarely visited by humans.  This was wise although I couldn't see how it was possible given that the entire area was surrounded by suburbs but even in its somewhat incinerated state the bush was working its usual magic of making the rest of the world seem distant and almost imaginary.  Looking around you could imagine this going on forever whereas in actual fact in only went on until there was enough flat ground to build a golfcourse, or North Balgowlah.

One of the afore mentioned creeks.  We looked very hard but saw no signs of air breathing fish

As promised the bush became somewhat more lively and green started to outnumber black and brown as we progressed.  Jason told me when the best times to see bird, wildflowers and swamp wallabies were and it became immediately apparent that I had turned up at the wrong time in the wrong season but we were here now and there was nothing for it but to carry on.  Incidentally if Jason ever wants to give up his current somewhat dubious profession he could get a job as a tour guide.

Signs of life are beginning to emerge

We were now well above (a couple of hundred metres tops) the dam and Jason indicated that the time had come to begin our downward plunge.  This came as great news to those of us who had been smoking for thirty years and had been using the excuse of taking photographs to pause for a moment and make futile attempts to get their breath back.  Down we went into bushland that began to lose the definition seared and appropriate the term lush.

At least semi-lush

There had been recent rain and water was everywhere.  Not in annoying quantities but there were puddles and creeks trickled in a pleasingly stereotypical fashion as opposed to being a depressing collection of stagnant waterholes.  Even the rock outcrops got in on the act sheening with moisture, either that or they were sweating.  It was a rather warm day.

A sheening outcrop

The recent rain had another beneficial effect.  Contestants for the Clare McIntyre memorial fungus were thick on the ground.  Their presence almost made up for the complete absence of the much promised swamp wallabies.  The good thing about fungus and mushrooms is that they don't tend to hop away as you're trying to take a photograph of them.  If they do that's probably because you ate the mushroom first.  If you wish to vote for your favourite fungus/mushroom don't bother, I don't really care.

Contestant #1

 

Contestant #2

Contestant #3

Giddy at the proliferation of fungi and related products I started taking photos of random plant life that seemed appealing to me.  Actually a glance back at this blog entry seems to imply that that is pretty much all I did.  Still the more photos I insert the fewer words I have to type.  This is why they can sell "picture books" at an exorbitant price when they're really just glorified photo albums.  I stood on tiptoe and used my zoom lens to take a photo of a golden bottle brush then Jason pointed out there was one at eye level about fifteen metres away.  I took a photo of that as well but the magic was gone.  Then I was forced to use that photo when I discovered that I had cut the top off the bottlebrush in the first photo.

This bottlebrush was kind enough to pause for a photo

Suddenly we came to a halt.  Our downward trajectory had proceeded to a point where any continuation would put us in serious danger of drowning.  Before us stretched the waters of Manly dam.  Actually before us stretched an expanse of lilies and reeds but there was definitely water under there somewhere.  I took a photo (of course) angling my camera to make it look like I wasn't trying to photograph the small child in a kayak who was currently splashing amongst the water plants.

Water, apparently

With the water level reached we turned left and continued upstream following Manly Creek which is the main feeder for the dam.  Now we were in proper, unincinerated bush and possibly in deference to that fact we were using walkways that had been laid down so that the precious soil was not soiled with our tread.  A very modest waterfall (more of a water stumble really) presented itself as a harbinger of things to come and I obligingly took a photo of it because it was trying very hard.

A water stumble

Up ahead of us was a far more impressive waterfall (don't get too excited).  According to a waterfall blog I encountered it is one of the most exciting and attractive waterfalls in the Sydney region (again, don't get too excited).  Along the way Jason pointed to a small patch of churned up mud and announced it was a swamp wallaby footprint.  Well it was either that or a dog.  I made "I'm trying to sound impressed" noises and we went on.  Then we came to a rather pleasant pool with a single duck and a small but genuine waterfall as promised just a sentence or two earlier.

A somewhat more impressive waterfall

"There's a lizard," said Jason.

"Where?" I replied.

"There."

"Where?"

This went on for a while but eventually I saw the lizard.  Or at least I saw a lizard, it turned out that the local lizard population was single handedly trying to make up for the absence of other animals on our walk.  The lizard preened and posed while I fumbled for my camera and eventually I managed to take a photo.  Shortly afterwards about eighty thousand other lizards also presented themselves for my photographic attention.  They actually got quite aggressive about it and Jason and I had to flee with lizard curses ringing in our ears.  Again I cannot stress enough the importance of not eating the mushrooms.

Lizard photos and definitely not a psilocybin induced hallucination

We had come halfway on our journey now and Jason took me aside.  In polite and gentle terms he pointed out that he wasn't getting any younger and he would like to see his family at some point before he left this world make his peace with his maker.  I took the hint and agreed not to take any more photos.  A promise I only broke once.

With that established we headed away from the creek and began to climb again along what was apparently a mountain bike trail.  Fortunately there were no mountain bikes.  It was here that Jason admitted he had only been along this part of the trail once or twice and he was having difficulty finding the path that would lead us down again towards the actual dam.  With visions of dying of starvation within shouting distance of a golf course I commended myself to god (you don't want to know which god) and quietly promised bloody vengeance upon all that Jason held dear should I have an early meeting with the being I unwisely sold my soul to some years ago.

Fortunately Jason's confusion was more apparent than real and after some uphill panting and reintroduction to the more fried sections of bushland we finally began a descent again until in the fullness of time we again reached the water.  That almost proved embarrassing as there didn't seem to be any further we could go without getting wet but after some casting around Jason found the path and pretended he had known it was there all along.  We finished our journey by walking across the top of the actual dam.  I looked down and saw a crack, there appeared to be water leaking out.  We wondered if we should tell anyone but eventually decided we'd just watch the results on the news.

Many thanks to Jason for his patience and seriously mate, give this tour guide idea a little thought.  It's outdoor work with few actual qualification requirements.