Well I guess the title spoils the surprise. I'll just have to see how much padding I can insert before we get to the big reveal. A slightly more adventurous outing in my ongoing attempts to decripple myself. I headed down to Gray's Point to wander into the fringes of the Royal National Park. Gray's Point is on the outskirts of Sydney in much the same way as Paris is on the outskirts of London. Having taken two buses and a taxi simply to arrive at my starting point I was wondering if I would ever make it home even before beginning my walk. The walk itself was nothing too strenuous, a six and a half kilometre round trip but there would be a certain amount of up and down. At least I assumed there would be as at some point I would reach the Hacking River which, not being immediately present at my starting point, implied a certain amount of down.
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A modest beginning
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It has to be said the beginning of the walk was underwhelming as I entered the untamed bush courtesy of a fire trail. I'm not crazy about walking along firetrails, I like the bush to be a little closer and if possible shielding me from the sun. Still having committed myself I dutifully set out along what was essentially a well maintained road. The day was warm and to stave off boredom if not heat exhaustion I took photos of random bits of bushland from my secure position in the middle of a strip of bare earth.
Things improved a bit as a narrow path paralleling the firetrail presented itself for my walking pleasure. It was essentially a footpath and hardly rough going but at least I could reach out and touch the trees rather than merely view them from a distance. The path justified its existence when it diverted briefly to take me to a lookout where I could gaze over the bush with glimpses of river lurking promisingly amongst the undergrowth. Delight at such a sight was moderated by the knowledge that I would have to travel over the bush in order to reach the river.
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There's a river down there somewhere
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One thing that had occupied me was the lack of birds. OK I had essentially been walking down a street but still the absence of flying things vexed me. I paused for a rest, I had after all been walking for at least ten minutes by this time, and took out my camera to photograph a piece of bush. Completely uninvited a very small bird photobombed my picture. If you can't find it, it's the small smudge of blue in the middle of the next picture. It's hardly a great photo but those birds flit about so much I've never been able to take even a halfway decent one before.
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You may need to zoom in for this one
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The firetrail came to an end just at the official start of the National Park. Up until now the bush had been walking through had been unofficial and definitely not royal at all. I walked past a small patch of spear grass adorned with a sign informing those who cared to read that this particular plant was vital to the local indigenous people who apparently used it for spears (obviously), firelighters, boat repair, refrigerator maintenance and as the basis of their space programme. My own experience with spear grass being limited to a childhood encounter when I had grabbed a bunch to stop me falling and had wound up with interestingly red hands I gave it a wide berth and kept on walking.
With the bush now immediately present rather than viewed from a distance I was able to take a photo of the Clare McIntyre memorial fungus. It wasn't a particularly good example if I'm being honest, it was rather desperate and scraggly looking. Possibly it can gain a mention in the special needs section of the competition.
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Distinctly disheveled fungus
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Now that the firetrail was a thing of the past I couldn't help but notice a general downward trajectory in my path. Somewhere down there was a river and I was determined to reach it.
Obviously the river was insinuating itself into the narrative and it seems like a good time to give you a few historical facts. The Hacking River was named after Evangeline Hacking a young lady of good breeding who had been exiled to the New South Wales colony after embarrassing her family by cavorting with one of her servants during a family game of blind mans bluff. Once here she met and swiftly married Lord Rupert Cough and became Lady Hacking-Cough. Lord Rupert was an entomologist who had come to these shores to study both the colony's varied insect life and the effects of a hot sun on a latex fetish. Soon their outrageous lifestyle shocked public sensitivities so greatly that the couple fled to Argentina where they opened a brothel and set up an aardvark farm. One of the conditions of their departure from the colony was that a river be named after them and the authorities picked the most remote one they could find at the time to honour their pledge. This is the sort of gem you just don't find in history books.
But back to the walk. As I said I was going down, down is always pleasant although it is tempered by the knowledge that if you're going down then at some point you will have to start going up. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life there. Along the way I took a picture of some photogenic bush because these things I do.
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Photogenic bush, sunlight etc etc
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A small creek stopped and posed for a photo as I passed. It seemed a little needy quite frankly but it begged and trickled so nicely that I indulged it. I'm a pushover for a needy creek. In return it directed me to a somewhat more acceptable candidate for the Clare McIntyre prize.
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A needy creek
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And a somewhat more impressive looking fungus
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Leaving the creek behind, despite it's desperate cries, I headed on down towards the river. The first thing I encountered when I reached it was a car park. The second thing I encountered was a bunch of people fishing. That was a slight let down it has to be admitted. After traipsing through the bush I came across a bunch of people who arrived at the same location in air conditioned comfort. On the other hand I took photos of ducks. As you do. And the most impressive fungus yet.
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| Duck! |
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| Now that is a fungus |
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| And these are more ducks |
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And finally the oft mentioned but rarely seen river
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The river was indeed appealing and the presence of people fishing held out the hope that aquatic life abounded beneath the surface, at least until these people finished fishing. But I turned my back, not for me hanging around with other human beings on a well mowed piece of riverbank. I plunged back into the bush, for about thirty seconds until I realised that I had to walk along the access road if I wanted to continue my journey. Sheepishly I slunk back past the fishers who were very kind and kept their sniggers to a minimum. What the access road accessed was another patch of riverbank also populated by fishers, picnickers and general recreaters. As I approached a ghastly noise assaulted my ears.
"Ah," I thought, "cockatoos". Just for once I was right. How many cockatoos there were I couldn't tell but from a distance it sounded like power saws were being used to conduct a massacre. I paused amidst the cacophony to take the cockatoo photos that I assumed would be available. A solitary cockatoo detached itself from the noise and took up a position where pictures were possible.
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Aforementioned cockatoo
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in flight
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With the photos taken and my ears bleeding I stumbled away from the plaza of noise following, at last, a track through the bush which would in the fullness of time lead back to my starting point. Kookaburras made their presence felt but too high up in the trees for good photos. Below is the best of the bad photos.
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Kookaburras on a branch
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After skillfully avoiding high velocity kookaburra shit I headed on down the path where the trees had gathered close to produce a sort of glade effect. Sunlight and shadow alternated in patches and a small trickle of water had produced a shaded, if somewhat smelly, pond roughly where the path might be if there wasn't a pond in the way. The day was hot and this area was cool and I paused to take stock, catch my breath and generally convince my body to keep stumbling on for a little while longer. I was just about to leave when a rustle in the bushes caught my ear. Actually it wasn't a rustle, it was more of a stamping crunch. I stared and before my startled eyes a reptile head appeared. After a while a certain amount of reptile body joined it. By implication there was almost certainly a reptile tail in the vicinity but I couldn't see that. A large lizard shouldered its way through the bushes and stuck its head out. I'm calling it a monitor but in actual fact I have no idea what it was.
Also I say large; large is a relative term. As reptiles go it was quite tiny by comparison with say dinosaurs or crocodiles but by comparison with the cute little lizards you get in your garden it was freaking immense. It also didn't seem to mind posing for the camera. Unfortunately the sun dappled glade I had been enjoying just a second ago now worked against me. The monitor's colouration seemed perfectly designed to conceal it in, for example, a sun dappled glade. I took a large number of not terribly good photos. One or two turned out all right but in most you have to look hard for the monitor before realising this was a photo you took before the monitor presented itself. Apparently understanding my difficulty the monitor left its perch and wandered down to the path itself to pose for more photos while fossicking for something edible which it apparently found for it wandered off again with something large hanging from its mouth which I earnestly hope was organic and not plastic.
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A sun dappled glade. No there isn't a monitor in this photo, he's somewhere off to the left
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There is however a monitor in this photo
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And this one
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And this one
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And this one
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And this one
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And this one
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It's fair to say I went a little overboard with the monitor photos but I've never seen such a large one in the wild before and particularly not one so accommodating towards photos. By the end of it I was suffering from reptilian overdose. As I left I passed a much smaller lizard sunning itself on a rock and I took a few photos all of which were terrible. I blamed the sun but user error is the more likely reason. This lizard would probably fit in the monitor's forearm.
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A small and badly photographed lizard
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I still had a couple of kilometres to walk including an unexpected reunion with the river when I took a wrong turn and some gasping and scrambling as the path took a sudden left turn to climb several contour lines close to simultaneously in a desperate attempt to return me to the altitude I had started at. I didn't care, well I did at the time because I was exhausted but I didn't care in the larger scheme of things. Nothing could beat the monitor on this walk and best of all my knee behaved itself and didn't present any more than the standard "you're unfit and you did exercise you stupid bastard" pains. I'm writing this blog entry the next day and my knee is still a little sore but nowhere as bad as I had feared. Possibly the physio and exercises (yes I'm doing them) are actually doing some good.
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