Monday 23 September 2024 – It turned out that the plans that Lorraine and Paul had laid for our last full day in the Sydney environs involved going for a walk. Obviously. The plan was to walk from Manly to Spit Bridge – right circle to left circle
but not in a straight line; rather via the Clontarf headland. This was not a circular walk, so Paul drove us to Seaforth, just to the left of the left-hand circle, and we took the bus down into Manly. The buses, like the trains and the ferries are (a) cheap and (b) well-organised; using phone or card, one could just tap on and tap off, and the charge for the trip was Aus$1 – about 50p.
Clearly, to undertake the walk, we needed to be fortified by a robust breakfast. Fortunately, L & P had a plan for that, too; frukost på Fika – breakfast at Fika, a Swedish café in Manly. (Fika is a Swedish word to convey the idea of having comfy coffee and cake in a café)
I was particularly taken with the decor in the loo. A quick shout-out to Topaz photo software here. I didn’t realise at the time, but the photo I took of the decor was very out of focus (I was in a hurry and didn’t check the photo there and then as I didn’t want to be seen as as a man who takes photographs of toilets). Up to now, an out-of-focus original has been basically a lost photo, but with modern technology and processing power, errors from photographer incompetence can sometimes be rectified.
Original out-of-focus picture
Sharpened version
The building next to Fika is rather nicely turned out.
and there were a couple of other nice arty touches on our walk through the town
to Manly cove (the other side of the North Head peninsula from the famous Manly Beach).
The start of the walk offered a nice view across to South Head – you can see the Macquarie Lighthouse and the Signal Station.
One of the nice things about walking around these areas of Australian cities is the individuality of some of the houses;
another is coming across things that seem a little counterintuitive.
Apparently, they get Little Penguins here at some times of the year. Not today, though.
The vegetation offered some excellent frames for the lovely views we saw as we walked.
North and South Heads as seen from Manly Cove
One of the great things about Australian beaches is the routine inclusion of ocean pools to supplement the open water swimming available. This is the one at Fairlight Beach, the next one around from Manly Cove.
We came across a couple of fearless sulphur-crested cockatoos as we went along the trail;
for some reason they had markings on their backs
though we don’t know why.
The coastal path we were walking involves a lot of up and down, so I was glad that the weather was benign and not too hot. Climbs were rewarded with some great views across various parts of Sydney Harbour, as well as back towards the city.
At one stage, there were petroglyphs beside the path. Some were reasonably easy to comprehend;
some less so.
(Upside down kangaroo? Really?)
A well as scenery, there was wildlife to admire – a couple of Australian Water Dragons, of reasonable size.
(The one above was actually quite reluctant to get out of the way of the people walking the path, which I found unusual – normally, lizards shift themselves swiftly as humans approach.)
The up-and-down continued
as did the views, which had some sensational colours,
and we passed some formidable rock formations.
A very photogenic corner,
and two sorts of housing: spacious, refined, all mod cons
and less so.
Shortly afterwards, after all the ups and downs of the coastal path, we reached Spit Bridge
which was our planned destination. Trouble was, we were at sea level, and the car was
up 154 steps, so there was one more climb to do. The view at the top was worth it, though,
and you can see, on the right of the photo, that the Spit Bridge is a lifting bridge, something I didn’t know until today.
It was a great walk, just over 11km, or 7 miles,
and, as I say, quite up and down.
Normally, on a 7-mile walk, I’d use about 700 calories; this walk used over 1,200; but it had everything – sunshine, coffee, views, wildlife, historic petroglyphs and lots (and lots) of steps; an excellent day.
Tomorrow, we have to leave our friends in Belrose, but we head further north, to see friends in Brisbane. We have a few days there, so I’m hoping we might get to see some nice scenery and maybe some wildlife. Who knows what the coming days hold?
Saturday 21 September – Today marked a change in pattern of our holiday travels, as we left our hotel room so that we could stay with friends for a few days, first in the Sydney environs, before then moving on to Brisbane. But I had a photo project first, which meant going out before breakfast so I could catch the morning light. I suppose the photo I was after is something of a cliché, but my first attempt, from yesterday’s wanderings, was less than satisfactory
because the light was all wrong, and if I’m going to perpetrate a cliché, I might as well do it properly. In the morning light, the scene looks much better to my eyes.
The journey to get to the photo location was pleasant – the temperature was lovely and the sun was shining. Because it was reasonably early, the sun was low and I found myself at one point casting no fewer than three shadows – one behind me from the real sun and two others from reflections from buildings in Sydney’s CBD.
The lovely light gave me a second chance to capture some scenes I‘d tried yesterday, but which looked better today,
as well as one that I hadn’t.
My vantage point for the Opera House shot was also a good one to construct a panorama of the city
which looks a bit skinny on the web page, but I think might be a good candidate for the wall at home.
After this very satisfactory start (and the usual rather chaotic breakfast at the Intercontinental), we checked out and headed for Circular Quay, and caught the 11 o’clock ferry to Mosman. Jane prowled the decks checking out the view on the 20-minute journey across the water.
At Mosman Bay, we met our friends Lorraine and Paul, with whom we would be staying for the next couple of days. They live in Belrose, a northern suburb of Sydney, and under normal crcumstances it would have been more logical to connect at Manly; but this weekend was the Manly Jazz Festival, rendering parking and other such practicalities out of the question, so Mosman Bay (lower circle below) it was.
The plan for the day was to get towards North Head and stroll down into Manly to see what entertainment the Jazz Festival might offer, so Paul found a suitable parking spot, at North Head Sanctuary, where there was immediately a fantastic view back towards the city.
This photo really demonstrates the popularity of boats around the harbour – with an environment like Sydney Harbour and the sort of weather we were enjoying, then why wouldn’t you?
Of course, being at North Head, we could see across to South Head, and the landmarks we’d passed yesterday – the Hornby Lighthouse
and the Macquarie Lighthouse.
You can just about make out the radar mast in front of the signal station.
North Head clearly had an important military role to play in days past, possibly fuelled by fears at one stage of Japanese aggression. In an enlightened move, the military area has been turned into National Park rather than being sold for development. It features a number of military installations, some of which are used as educational installations, such as a gun emplacement, which has information boards describing how it was used.
Other military buildings are now used as a quarantine station, down by the shore, and there were barracks
parts of which are now used as an entertainment venue
and parts of which are now home to small businesses.
There are also reminders about Australia’s involvement in so many theatres of war.
The path back to Manly led through bush
and past some wildlife, such as this Burton’s legless lizard
and a pair of brush turkeys, which are common enough to be a nuisance to the locals but which were new to our eyes.
Male Brush Turkey
Female Brush Turkey
They’re called brush turkeys (not bush turkeys) for a reason.
When we saw Manly Beach on the descent (the leftmost beach in the photo below), it was clear that smoke we’d seen earlier was actually quite a significant bush fire.
As we headed down towards Shelly Beach, the path continued along the cliff tops overlooking these beaches, and there was a sombre message among the lovely views.
Shelly Beach presented a rather dissonant juxtaposition:
people having fun on the beach in the foreground whilst a bush fire raged in the background. (We learned later that it was a controlled burn that went somewhat out of control, but no-one was injured.)
On the walk past Shelly Beach, there’s an interesting little art installation built into the rocks,
and then we reached Manly, where the market had been displaced to beachside
by the clearly very popular Manly Jazz Festival.
Manly was very crowded
so (having queued for quite a while to get some splendid ice cream at Gelato Messina) we found a taxi to take us back to the car and headed over to Lorraine and Paul’s house in Belrose for the evening.
Sunday 22 September 2024.
The next day was a chance for us to catch up with more friends who lived in the area – something of a “small world” story. Two years ago we were exploring Canada on a major trip, one segment of which was spent based in Churchill, on the Hudson Bay, looking for polar bears. Whilst there, we met two delightful Australian ladies, Vicki and Kris, who were pretty much at the start of a fantastically impressive world tour over the space of a whole year. It turned out that they live in Mona Vale, which is near to Belrose and so we arranged to meet them to catch up with them. Vicki picked us up, and took us for a tour of the local beaches.
Bilgola Beach
Newport Beach, from Bilgola Lookout
Barrenjoey Lighthouse, Palm Beach
North Palm Beach
and Palm Beach proper, where I got a nice close-up of a kookaburra.
Whilst we were with Vicki and Kris, we were visited by a flock of rainbow lorikeets, which are beautifully coloured and really quite noisy.
Kris cooked a wonderful lunch for us and their friends Rosie and Astley, who were great company and whose extensive travel history enlarged our already-daunting list of possible travel destinations before Vicki took us back to Belrose where we could reflect on a lovely occasion. It’s quite common to agree to keep in contact with people met on holiday whilst travelling, but actually rare to find that the connection is deep and enduring. We had met Vicki and Kris on the UK leg of their world trip, and it was clear that they were grand people to stay in touch with; that it was so close to Belrose and such a good opportunity to meet again was a large slice of luck; similar to the slice of luck that enabled us to get back in touch with Sharon and David when we were in Melbourne*.
We have one more day staying in Belrose with Lorraine and Paul. I wonder what plan they’ve hatched for our final day in the Sydney area?
* I’m embarrassed to find out that I didn’t write this day up; it was filled with Melbourne murals and a lovely lunch with David and Sharon, whom we met on a walking holiday in Slovenia back in 2016 and formed a connection similar to the one which kept us in touch with Vicki and Kris. With apologies to them, I will rectify this omission as soon as our schedule permits.
Tuesday 10 September 2024 – When we looked out of the window this morning, it had clearly rained hard during the night, but it was difficult to tell if it was drizzling right now or whether the weather was just that air-borne moisture you get when you’re in a cloud. Anyway, it wasn’t bucketing down as we walked round the lodge’s lake to breakfast, and there was possibly even the hint of a lift in the weather.
On the basis of various weather forecasts, we decided that rather than wrap ourselves up in something warm and stay indoors, we should go for a walk. Not obviously, by any means, though. Just down the road from our hotel is the Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre,
where we went to get our Parks Pass and also a ticket for the shuttle bus which would take us to one of the well-known walks in the area, a circuit round Dove Lake. The total cost was not small, but, as with the Russell Falls park, it was clear as we walked around that there was a lot of work involved in maintaining paths and other facilities, so it was money well spent.
The terrain we could see from the bus
underlined how wet the place was. Basically, we have been wet and cold since we left Hobart, and we asked the hotel receptionist if this was normal. She said, emphatically, that it was not; in the 12 seasons she’d worked in Cradle Mountain, this was the first time they’d had such consistent rain for such a long time – every day for two weeks.
The shuttle bus has a few stops en route to Dove Lake, the first of which was at the Ranger Station;
they were clearly expecting me and wanted to make sure that I stayed safe.
At Dove Lake, the prospects for spectacular scenery were a little less than uplifting
but since we’d made the effort (and paid the bus fare!) to get there and it was only drizzling, we grimly struck out on the 6km Dove Lake circuit. This is largely a well-maintained path
with steps to help with ascents and descents
and boardwalk to get you across the tricky bits. Every so often, the drizzle would stop for a few minutes, and one could begin to make out the reason that the area is called Cradle Mountain,
and the general scenery, whilst being exceedingly moist, was not unattractive.
As we worked our way along the path, the weather lifted a little more, the cradle became clearer to see,
and we could see that there was snow on the upper slopes of the mountains on the other side of the lake.
Every so often there was something to remark on, whether it be multiple Pandanus trees
or some extra highlights among the greens of the trees.
We reached the far end of the lake
and continued on the path, through an area called the “Ballroom Forest”.
It’s clearly a forest, and probably rainforest at that, but we couldn’t fathom the reason for its other name.
We noticed at this point that the top of the cradle was beginning to clear, and one could actually make out snow on the slopes.
The unrelenting treeness of the view gave way to rock at one point
though in the event it meant that one had to duck as one went past – there was a distinct lack of headroom.
We carried on, along paths that were easy to follow but more difficult to walk on – there were more uneven surfaces, and the unremitting rain of the previous days meant that there was, more often than not, a river running along the middle of the path, requiring fancy footwork for those, like me, who were not wearing boots and didn’t want wet feet.
The return half features quite a steep climb
at the top of which a pied currawong came to ask us why we were breathing so hard.
At about this time, the weather really did lift and we could see the cradle quite clearly as we looked back,
but the lump we’d just climbed over was getting in the way, and we wondered if we’d miss out on a clear view of the mountains before we finished the walk. The clouds did swirl back in as we passed a boathouse
but eventually, our luck was in as we reached the point on the circuit where the Iconic Cradle Mountain Shot could be captured.
There are even instructions on a noticeboard as to how to post your attempt at the shot on social media. That’s how iconic the location is.
In the end, it was an enjoyable walk, as it ended with the sun almost shining, and there being no rain, so we were glad we had made the effort to get out. As we drove back to the hotel and I concentrated on avoiding the craters in the road, Jane suddenly yelled “wombat!”. At first, I thought this was a critique of my driving, but actually it was because there was, indeed, a wombat beside the road, so we screeched to a halt so we could take a closer look. This was my first-ever wombat,
much more interesting than the wallaby which was quietly lying a little further away wondering what all the fuss was about.
Not only did I see my first wombat in this area, but also my first-ever pademelon!
so we were very happy as we got back to the hotel. We had a short rest before we had to go out again, on the day’s booked excursion to a place even closer than the Visitor Centre. As we drove there, we passed a couple of cars off to the side of the road, a sure sign that there was Something To See. In this case, there were a couple more wombats, just grazing away beside the road. I got some video of one of them,
and we carried on to our activity, which was at a place called Devils@Cradle. I guess its name gives away what we’d find there:
Tasmanian Devils, an endangered species of marsupial found only on this island. We had booked to see them being fed, which happens late in the day, as they are basically crepuscular creatures, but we turned up early so that we could take a look around and see what other creatures were being looked after there. These included Quolls, of two different sorts: Eastern Quoll
(also seen here in a dark morph)
and Spotted Tail Quoll.
These, like the Devils are (a) marsupials, (b) endangered and (c) nowhere near as cute as they look. All three creatures are ravenous meat eaters and not to be treated lightly; as far as they’re concerned, humans are just meat, and so trying to pet them is likely to end in tears, as in fingers being torn off hands. Each animal has hugely strong jaws – ounce for ounce stronger even than hyenas – and their jaws can gape extraordinarily wide, which helps them as they tear and rend. This one, though, was just yawning.
The Devils@Cradle centre, whilst undeniably a tourist attraction, is actually a serious scientific endeavour as part of conservation efforts concerning these creatures. The Tasmanian Devils, particularly, are at risk, mainly because of human activity, killing them often out of fear (they can make a blood-curdling screeching sound if they’re in disagreement among themselves) or because they can be a threat to domestic animals. A result of this depleted population is a lack of genetic diversity, and a rather unpleasant – transmissible – cancer has struck a large majority of the Devil population. Devils@Cradle has a small but significantly cancer-free population of Tasmanian Devils to help preserve the species. Its decline is very unfortunate, because Devils have an important role to play in the environment; like hyenas, they can hunt but also clear up remnants of carcases left by other predators. Sadly, if these carcases are roadkill, the Devils themselves are threatened by traffic; in their eagerness to consume the carcase, they just pile in and will still be on the road as the next vehicle comes along…
The Quolls too are under threat from urban development and, particularly, from the feral cat population, so the establishment is also involved in maintaining a breeding population and managing reintroductions.
Devils@Cradle, though, has no government funding, so depends on visitors for its money. One of the attractions they offer is a chance to see the animals being fed. It’s a very well-organised and information-rich activity. In our case, our guide was Sarah,
seen here displaying the wallaby legs that she would be using to feed the Devils. She was very knowledgeable, engaging and informative about the creatures, the need for conservation and the work that the centre is doing.
If you are of a sensitive nature, I suggest you skip the rest of this post, as it features images of bits of animals being torn to shreds.
Still here? OK, here are some still images of Devils being fed
(note the currawong, which is hanging around in case something is left over) and the quolls ditto.
Note that Sarah doesn’t just throw them the meat, because then they would just grab it and run for cover; to ensure they stay out for the punters, she attaches it to a hook so that the spectacle can be watched.
They may look cute, but, like the Bugblatter Beast of Traal, they’re very ravenous.
Here’s some video which might really put you off your dinner. You Have Been Warned.
It was a very interesting evening – informative and educational, albeit cold and wet as it rained towards the end of it, not that the animals cared.
So ended our day at Cradle Mountain. Tomorrow we head back east, for some R&R at Launceston in north central Tasmania. We have no formal activities booked but you can bet your sweet bippies that if it ain’t raining we’ll go for a walk. Obviously.
