Lithgow's Exhibition Pagoda

On the way back from Canowindra last week we called in on the 'Exhibition Pagoda' exhibition in Lithgow's Gang Gang gallery. 

It's a collection of photos, watercolours, and an amazingly 3D collection of fabric landscape chunks, titled 'Gardens of Stone'. They're based on actual pagoda rock formations in the Gardens of Stone area, and the exhibition is in support of the push for an enlarged Gardens of Stone national park. Lithgow could benefit greatly from such a park, and the niche tourist industry that it could support.

The exhibition is on display Thursdays to Sundays, until 20 June. The real pagodas will be on display for much much longer, we hope, a few kilometres to the north.

 

Artists are Anne Graham and Boyd McMillan

Canowindra and my burst balloon

 
Canowindra was a pleasant surprise. I'd expected flat, dusty and straight, but it's winding, scenic, and characterful.

It's also got balloons, as in little sculptured street furniture ones, and pictures and posters everywhere. Canowindra is one of NSW's hot-air balloon capitals.

 

It's several hours west of Sydney, so you need to make a bit of a holiday out of it. You get picked up from your lodgings before dawn for the sunrise flight.

The weather was perfect, but my flight got cancelled anyway. The pilot had been taken ill, and it seems there was no back-up. So we got our money back, and my inaugural ballooning experience will have to await another milestone birthday.

I enjoyed Canowindra anyway. I might be back!

(Wishing the pilot a speedy recovery.)

Grey is the new Orange

Orange, in NSW's Central Tablelands, is quite the place for a visit. If you believe visitnsw.com, it's about unforgettable getaways in exquisite rolling hills, vineyards, lush orchards, boutique shopping, and renowned food and wine. Plus it's renowned also for its preserved heritage.

All that's true of course. I like it, and have often stopped there briefly and quite liked the place.

This time we spent a night and a day there, and looked around a little bit more. (Photo at right courtesy visitnsw.com)

 

 

 

 

We checked out the botanic gardens and Cook Park, both very nice places.

 

 

 

But Orange's recent popularity has brought a big expansion in its population, and big new suburbs are appearing all around. And what's with the ubiquitous dark grey roofing everywhere? Not just unsightly, but a very sub-optimal colour too, if you don't want to waste energy during the rather hot summers they have out here.

More Jinki ridges and gullies!

 

I seem to be visiting Jinki Ridge every two years in May. Looking back, I see I reported the last such visit here: 2019 Jinki post  Well, last week my Thursday group did a slight variation: we explored a whole bunch of smaller ridges and gullies, just to the east of the main Jinki Ridge.

We're in the Blue Mountains, off the Bells Line of Road, looking towards the Grose Valley. It's a very fertile area for bushwalking adventures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another peek at Peak Hill

I like to get back to Peak Hill at least once a year. It's in the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, near Brooklyn. I refer to it as 'everyone's favourite pointy peak'. It might just be me though, as there strangely weren't many other takers the other day. My bushwalking club's getting a little tame in its old age.

At 200m, it's actually a little lower than Porto Ridge, along which you approach it. That's another of the confusing things about a Peak Hill outing. The third is that however many times you do it, you can still get a bit disoriented, such are the contortions of the geography and the transient nature of the obviously-not-quite-trafficked enough track. Of course I'd told them I knew it all so well that I hadn't needed to bring my GPS. Actually, we didn't get very lost, or for very long!

Some excellent indigenous rock carvings below and to the west of Porto Ridge.

 

A lesson in procuring a tiny taste of bush honey.

More rock art. This time it's a group of ochre hand stencils in a rather fine and well-hidden rock overhang.

 

 

 

 

 

Atop the pointy peak.

It was lost and now it is found. A rather stressful few minutes for this bushwalker. And it proves again that the best way to locate a lost phone is to ring the number. Dozens of times if necessary, and while wandering around lost for the second time, after losing it while lost for the first time!
 

 

Back down to Brooklyn along the big ugly concrete strip section.

 

 

Hawkesbury view from Porto Ridge.

(Some photos courtesy Eirlys V, Fred G, and Robert M)

Colo explorations: Turner to Tootie and back

A group of us explored yet another stretch of the amazing Colo River recently. 

The Colo is that long, winding, thing that drains much of the Wollemi National Park. Its geography is a little too complex for me, I've come across it from many angles, encountering many of its loopy bits, and been forever confused about what's where exactly. 

Anyway, I'm gradually coming to grips with it. This time we entered via the Bob Turner Track from Upper Colo, and ventured down the left(?) / downstream bank a couple of kilometres as far as the Tootie Creek confluence.

We'd planned to cross the river at the usual crossing point, but found it to be pretty uncrossable. The water was higher and faster flowing than I'd come across before, even this long after the floods of a few weeks back. It drains a big area, this river.

Progress was less arduous than it might have been, thanks to the destruction that had been wrought by the earlier torrents. Nevertheless, one of our members was defeated by the various obstacles, and had to be left for a while and picked up later.

Recovery was at the newly-discovered 'Australian Brewery' pub at Rouse Hill. And this was quite a discovery too.

(3rd photo courtesy Liam H, 4th photo Australian Brewery)

Rumbalara again

 

I returned to the Rumbalara and Katandra Reserves the other day, to remind myself what bushwalkerly delights are on offer up there near Gosford. I was last there four years ago. See here: 2017 post

 

It's still a good spot for a variety of walks, views, and educational experiences. You get to meet some of Australia's historical explorers too, for some reason.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Katandra Reserve, a few kilometres walk to the north.

 

Along the way you meet explorer John Eyre, lurking among the grass trees.

Colourful

 

Some colourful sights yesterday in and around the Rumbalara Reserve near Gosford.

Deadly

 

 

A very pretty collection of these red-and-white toadstools have appeared just down the road. It's the fungus season again, and what with the good rains this year, it might be a particularly good fungus season.

They're fly ageric (Amanita muscaria), and they're hallucinogenic and very poisonous. They're also the ones that fairies and elves sit on.

Stinky

He was on the front door this evening. I initially made him welcome. Then I looked him up, and he's a Toad Stink Bug (Platycoris (Hypogomphus) bipunctatus).

So I think I'll tell him to go away!

The Great North Walk part 3: Hornsby to Berowra

The stages are getting a bit bigger and hillier now, but we're still going (fairly) strong. Nine brave souls at the start.

Here we are having morning tea at the scenic waterfall on the Great North Walk's recently-designated 'upper diversion' around the Hornsby Rifle Range. I'm still a bit peeved at having the easier under-the-rifle-range route stolen off us allegedly for safety.

 

 

 

 

 Down those steps into Galston Gorge

 

 

Probably better to be facing inwards

 

 

 

This bushwalker's done it all before

 

 

An unexpected challenge at the creek crossing under the Galston Gorge bridge. They've put concrete 'stepping cylinders' there, but they're not stuck properly to the boulders beneath, and they wobble horribly!

 

 

 

Now is this a snake I see, around a tree? (Actually it's not!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch at the Crosslands Reserve. Some are feeling a bit sore, and checking out the Uber option.

 

 

 

And then there were seven.

Photo courtesy Elaine W