For some reason I gazed out upon one of the hottest days we've had so far this year and decided "yes, today is the day I complete my bushwalk". I packed twelve hundred mls of water (not enough) a muesli bar and, for reasons I can't begin to explain, a history of the Byzantine emperor Theophilos and thus equipped set out on my journey.
The first part of my journey involved figuring out how to get to my start point. My previous walk had ended at a picnic area near a bridge over the river and my first task was to get back to it. Some hasty google mapping told me that a train to Chatswood would put me in the vicinity of a bus stop. The buses that attended said stop would drop me exactly where I need to go or rather start. I have only traveled to Chatswood twice in my life both times for the purpose of immediately leaving and going elsewhere. This is possibly the best reason to go to Chatswood that I can think of.
The last time I was at Chatswood was several years ago and the place was a chaotic mess because they were in the middle of building a major train/bus interchange. This time the place was a chaotic mess because they've finished. I got off the train, followed the signs, wandered around desperately and eventually wound up circumnavigating the entire station. "Interchange" apparently means "bus stops in the general vicinity". With a mild sense of achievement and a more than mild sense of annoyance I finally presented myself at the bus stop in question to find that the next bus wouldn't appear for another forty five minutes. I caught a taxi. The driver was somewhat incredulous that I would be going for a walk. He also didn't seem to know that the Lane Cove River was there until we actually drove over it. Still I finally arrived and alighted at the picnic area I had left somewhat tired and dispirited a couple of weeks earlier.
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| Start point, ten minutes up the road from this bridge is Chatswood if you're interested |
I looked at the river and then, as is becoming usual, turned my back on it and followed the path away from it. I say path but it was actually a series of steps which clambered up the hillside through such bush as had not been demolished to install the road. Aforementioned road was close enough for traffic sounds to filter through the trees and I gazed down on traffic when I paused for a photo. Actually I paused to gasp for breath but justified it by taking a photo as well.
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| A gasping for breath photo |
Once the climbing bit was over I was able to set out on a path somewhat more horizontal than vertical. The signs helped. I was walking along bits of the Great Northern Walk although I was subverting the paradigm by heading in a southerly direction. The Great Northern Walk was created by essentially giving a collective name to a bunch of existing paths and adding helpful signs directing you to the next bit when one part ended. Despite the bush around me I was actually walking through suburbs (North Ryde at this point I think) and the path would suddenly become a sealed road and then veer into the bush again before returning to the road and passing by houses. On my right hidden behind a fence was the Northern Suburbs Memorial Garden and Crematorium. I don't know why the fence, I'm pretty sure the occupants won't escape.
Once past the Home of the Dead the path graciously deigned to present itself again and led me back among the trees. For this I was grateful not just for the scenery but because it was extremely hot. Signs told me that I was on my way to Fairyland. They also told me that fox baits had been laid in the area but I ignored those ones. Ahead of me the Fairyland Pleasure Grounds awaited me. They had obviously been waiting for some time and were a little past their best.
Fairyland used to be a farm. The owners raised fruit for Sydney's burgeoning cocktail industry until they realised they were making more money selling snacks to people pleasure jaunting up the river. They promptly converted their farm into a picnic/games/family entertainment area. There was swimming, there were games and general wholesome fun. Not quite my idea of fairyland but each to their own. The place closed down in the 1960s was purchased by the National Parks authority and allowed to return to nature. Unfortunately it didn't return to the right sort of nature. The place is full of invasive species which various volunteers are currently engaged in tearing out in the hopes that the apparently somewhat less ambitious native vegetation will take the hint. A small bench remained to remind one of times gone by and I sat on it and stared out at the river.
Yes the river had reappeared. It had taken a significant right hand turn and my walk had essentially cut across the arc and deposited me back by the riverbank at Fairyland. I looked at the water and was rewarded with the sight of small fish defying the pollution content by making their lives there. The fish were small but nuggety, solid blocks of flesh with fins.
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| The view from Fairyland |
Leaving the death defying fish behind me I followed the path and, of course, immediately left the river again. The fates had apparently decided I had seen more river than I deserved. The next time I would see it I would be on a bridge looking down. For right now I suddenly found myself in a slightly rainforesty area with ferns and water trickling down from nearby cliffs.
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| Cliffs, trickling water, vegetation etc |
It has to be said that fewer animals presented themselves for my inspection than on my previous walk. Even the lizards who had been complete camera whores on my earlier jaunts satisfied themselves with rustling in the bush with my every step but never once stepping out onto the track. Compensation came in the form of a magnificent crop of fungi which had gathered around this somewhat damp area out of direct sunlight. I took far too many photos of them most of which I shan't bore you with.
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| OK, I lied |
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| But seriously check out these fungi |
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| Clare McIntyre Award winners all |
With my head reeling from a fungi overdose (eating them probably wasn't the best idea I've had) I continued on my merry and somewhat hallucinated way down the river. As if to debunk my claims of a lack of wildlife I rounded a corner and almost bumped into a brush turkey. Compared with the magnificent specimen I had seen on my previous walk this one was a little shabby and disheveled (like I'm one to talk) also it wasn't interested in posing for photos. It was obviously keen on keeping a little distance between myself and it but the only way it could think of to do this was by walking further down the path that I was walking on myself. This led to the slightly odd situation of my walking through the bush preceded by a brush turkey like some sort of escort. I was starting to wonder if I would actually wind up following it home and discover I had adopted a brush turkey. Fortunately we came to another bridge where the path forked. The brush turkey went one way and I went the other.
The bridge symbolised another change for here the path ended. If I wanted to continue I would have to cross the bridge and pick up the path on the other side of the river. Since the alternative was lying down to die on this track and presumably having the brush turkey pick my bones cross the river I did.
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| Welcome back to civilisation |
I plodded across the bridge and then up the hill on the other side. After a quick check of the map I turned around and plodded back down the hill until I encountered the beginning of the path lurking modestly behind a carpark for a business down by the river. Said business is ringed by fences warning people to keep out and noting there was apparently a heck of a lot of stuff on their site that could kill you if you were foolish enough to ignore the keep out signs. It also implored you to call an ambulance if you should be accidentally killed or words to that effect. In fact the signs dwelt on that for so long that I couldn't help but suspect a certain hint of relish behind the words. I wonder if the site is frequently overrun with thrillseekers facing near certain death at the hands of whatever the hell is lurking behind the fences. Resisting the almost overwhelming temptation to jump the fence and find out I instead skirted the edge and found myself on a footbridge taking me back to the other side of the river.
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| The innocuous facade of the factory of death |
The path took me to a neatly trimmed park but by persevering to the end I picked up the path again and dove back in among the trees. You could smell the salt in the water now and while bush was on my right increasingly what was on my left was mangroves. If you didn't know this a whole bunch of helpful signs told you (and also that fox baits had been laid in the area). Mangroves we were breathessly informed were an essential part of keeping the river clean or at least cleaner than it would be if there weren't mangroves. The trouble with mangroves is they look grimy, slimy and they stink. You can forgive any environmental devastator for thinking that this was one area that probably wouldn't be missed. Mangroves in short resemble the set from a horror movie although possibly not a good one.
To avoid sullying the fragile mangroves with my tread a boardwalk had been built allowing the casual walker to traverse this environmental iron lung without getting their feet muddy. Signs waxed lyrical about the amount of life supported by the mangroves (which all seemed to be out when I visited) and the environmental benefits to be derived therefrom. As if that wasn't enough one part of the walk also boasted wetlands. Wetlands are terribly important environmental something or others that stop the mangroves from bursting onto dry land and terrifying the villagers or something like that. I walked through or rather, over, mangroves and wetlands trying to determine where one became the other without much success.
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| Mangroves. All they really need is a guy in a hockey mask with a chainsaw |
A rustling among what on balance was probably wetlands made me turn and I caught a glimpse of a kookaburra busily beating to death part of the profusion of life putatively inhabiting the area. Unfortunately by the time I got my camera ready it had finished.
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| Responsible for the reduction of wildlife in the area by at least one. |
My path had taken me away from the river although not from water (that's difficult among mangroves) rather a couple of creeks flowed into the river and rather than crossing them immediately the path chose to wander up them for a while before hopping across and then traveling down the other side again. This happened not once but twice and I plodded wearily along while the river skipped ahead and giggled at my tardiness.
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| One of the aforementioned creeks. I'm going to assume that green colour is natural |
Finally back shadowing the river again I took advantage of what I'm almost certain was a path through the mangroves to the river bank. I slipped and slithered over the sticky mud whispering apologies to the profusion of wildlife which sensibly kept out my way. Once at the river bank I found oyster shells and took a photo of them as the only evidence of all of that wildlife supposedly around before struggling back to the path property.
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| At some point in the not too distant past these were oysters |
My journey along the river was coming to an end although perversely my walk wasn't. After struggling through or at least over the mangroves the path ended at a suburb street. I had arrived at Hunters Hill where the inhabitants had better things to do with the riverside than let trees and mangroves grow, build houses for example. A decision now had to be made. Where the hell was I going to go now? I had effectively finished the walk. The national park had ended and walking along the riverbank would involve trespassing on the properties of the sort of people who had enough money to get the police to listen to their complaints. And yet I felt incomplete, I hadn't as I had intended walked from one end of the river to the other. There was a solution. I actually know where the Lane Cove River meets the Parramatta. Its at Woolwich and I had seen it when I did my walk around those parts some weeks earlier. Walking to the ferry wharf would effectively complete the journey and also provide me with a method of getting home.
I set off not among bush now but along suburb streets past houses, schools and all of the accoutrements of civilisation. I discovered suddenly that it was incredibly hot. It had been warm in the bush but once on a concrete footpath, next to a tarmac road and with minimal tree cover (although Hunters Hill is leafier than many suburbs) the sun beat down on me. I had already walked about nine kilometres and this was another three. I stumbled along down one street after another. I did try walking along the river when a park presented itself but with neatly trimmed grass and houses and yachts surrounding me it wasn't the same and eventually I plodded up to the main road and simply pointed myself at Woolwich ferry wharf.
Eventually and it must be admitted with a certain sense of triumph I stumbled onto the ferry wharf approximately five minutes before I died from a combination of exhaustion and dehydration. I celebrated by drinking the last of my water (I really did not bring enough) and once recovered took a final photo of the Lane Cove River before it lost its identity in the burgeoning bulk of Sydney Cove.
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| The Lane Cove River meeting the Parramatta, not visible is the exhausted maniac holding the camera. |
With that done I sank trembling onto a bench and waited for a ferry to transport me a little closer to my home. I also finally saw a piece of wildlife. It was a handsome yellow and silver fish dangling dramatically from the line of a boy who was fishing off the wharf.
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