Rock Island

My Thursday Survey adventure walking group goes from strength to strength. Last week Harold took us to Rock Island (and Little Rock Island), in the Wollemi National Park, thirty or so kilometres north of Clarence and the (now defunct) Zig Zag Railway.

Here we are, heading towards our twin goals (rugged up against the snow and sleet that initially greeted us).

Coming down off Little Rock Island, and looking towards a Sphinx-like structure  on the southern end of Rock Island.

The 'islands' are large rocky plateaux, surrounded on all sides by steep-sided canyons with flowing creeks. Otherwise it was all rather dry. It hasn't rained much for months here, after all.

In one of the canyons, approaching the ascent onto Rock Island proper.

There's a big rock overhang, with its very own stalagmite and stalagtite.









And here's the way up onto Rock Island. A rather narrow slot. We wondered at first whether it was wide enough, so sent one of the larger members of the party up first. No problems!

The view from our lunch spot on Rock Island. One of our company exploring the fabulously tempting nearby pagodas.

There's another excellent rock overhang on the way out. We named it 'One Hand Cave', after the single hand stencil we saw there. (Then we saw a second one - must be 'Two Hands Cave')



Yet another terrific day out for the Thursday Surveyors!

Who killed Cockle Creek?

OK, I don't think it's quite dead. But it's looking a bit poorly.

Yesterday my bushwalking club did a nice little Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park walk - from North Turramurra down to Bobbin Head and back, coming up via the Gibberagong and Murrua tracks. We were very struck by the badly polluted state of Cockle Creek, especially in the region of the Gibberagong Waterholes. It looked like a big overflow of sediment from some development project upstream.
So today my mission was to track down the culprit.



A couple of kilometres upstream, Cockle Creek runs alongside the M1 Pacific Motorway, and the NorthConnex tunnelling project. A prime candidate for pollution suspicion. So I headed off into the bush on an intrepid journey of discovery out of Asquith, through a proudly graffitied tunnel under the motorway, and down a long, steep, slippery (and unpolluted) creek bed.

















When I arrived at Cockle Creek it was also clean. NorthConnex was off the hook.






Back on the job, I drove to North Wahroonga, and headed off  along the fire trail towards North Turramurra and Bobbin Head Rd. I checked each of the tributary creeks, and every one of them was clean.



Until the last one.  Lovers Jump Creek was cloudy grey and clearly sediment-polluted.

The water dragon didn't seem too put out by it, but there again, he was staying out of the water!


There was a rather ineffectual looking yellow plastic sheet across the creek (a 'water-gate'), implying that the powers-that-be were onto the case. The water gate didn't actually seem to be doing much though.

So where was the source of the problem?

I headed further upstream. And I think I found it. In Karuah Rd, Turramurra, alongside Memorial Park, there had been a landslide/roadworks/failed roadworks episode. The dirt had fallen into the creek. Below that point it was polluted. Upstream it was clean.

Sunspots and stormy solar weather

Last week there was a lot of solar activity. As in several big sunspots and several enormous solar flares - including the biggest in 12 years, I read.

It was expected to cause all kinds of interesting effects on earth, including problems with GPS, communications and other electrical equipment. I'm not sure how much of this actually happened - the news bulletins have been all about major earthly weather events, after all.

Solar flares come out of sunspots - cooler areas of the Sun's surface which are the centres of solar storms. The charged particles emitted take typically 24 hours to reach us, and then they interfere with our atmosphere to cause their mischief.

I decided I'd better see for myself what was going on. Don't try this at home, children, unless you have a proper heavy duty solar filter. I just attached my 300mm lens to my SLR camera, pointed it at the sun with said solar filter held firmly in front of the lens, and clicked away on 'auto' settings. Here's the result.

(Vital health warning: NEVER look directly at the sun, especially with telescopes, cameras or other magnifying devices, unless you have appropriate protective equipment like my solar filter, and know how to use it.)

Walking the Watagans

I went back to the Watagans the other day. I've previously done the full traverse of the range as part of a full traverse of the Great North Walk, which runs all the way from Sydney to Newcastle. This time I just did a day trip, starting and finishing at Freemans Gap, about 30km west of Newcastle.


It's a mixture of fire trails and rainforest bush tracks, and there's lots of ups and downs. The rainforest is decidedly scenic, but usually it's also wet, muddy, and extremely leech-infested.

On this occasion though, it was all bone dry, after months of little or no rain. The main hazard was the slipperiness due to the dustiness of some of the steep tracks.














Another hazard, though I didn't realise it at the time, was the tick that hitched a ride on me. Later that evening I disturbed it on my shoulder, and before there was time to get the Wart-Off freezing spray onto the job, it had pumped its poison into me. I had a very itchy shoulder for a few days, but thankfully nothing worse. For instance I'd hate to get that weird meat allergy thing that sometimes happens.

Another botanic garden: Mt Tomah

I was showing a visitor around last week, and returning from a day in the Blue Mountains, we called in at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden at Mount Tomah.

It's been a long time since I was last there, and the gardens have matured nicely.




As is the way with these places, it's divided into lots of sections. There's a formal garden, a rock garden, a bog garden, rhododendrons, woodlands, and a Gondwana walk. Plus, interestingly, an explorers' walk. Not the usual line-up of explorers though. These were 14 plant explorers who went collecting in Asia over 300 years. There's also a conifer section, with, not surprisingly, some fine specimens of the ancient, recently rediscovered, Wollemi Pine. (A bit of a 'Jurassic Park' theme to go along with these.)

The formal garden was looking a bit on the informal side, I thought. The problem seemed to be the brush turkeys which had made themselves at home there!





More at: https://www.bluemountainsbotanicgarden.com.au/

Auburn's cherry blossoms, furry friends and feathered show-offs

Auburn's Botanic Gardens held its Cherry Blossom Festival the other week. Its nice little Japanese garden was overrun by admiring visitors taking their selfies in front of the cherry trees and obscuring the view of the concrete Mt Fuji that lurks somewhere in there.

I went back a few days later to check out the gardens at leisure, and it was well worth the visit. There are 9 hectares to explore. As well as the Japanese garden,  there's a reflection pool, a scented garden, a rose garden, a native garden, a billabong, a rainforest and more.

I nearly forgot the fauna reserve. Sleepy kangaroos and an albino wallaby were being entertained by a curious emu and some extraordinarily showy peacocks.


More at:
http://www.cumberland.nsw.gov.au/facilities/regional-gardens/auburn-botanic-gardens/