The Great North Walk again - part 1: Circular Quay to Macquarie Park

For the third time in my bushwalking career I've set out, bushwalkers in tow, along the Great North Walk from Sydney to Newcastle. It's 250km, and doing it a day at a time, spaced roughly one month apart, means it should take between 12 and 18 months. It's a good old standby, and it simplifies the walk planning process.

 

Officially the walk starts at Circular Quay, with the ferry ride to Woolwich Pier. So we did that, and walked the pleasant streets of Hunters Hill, before plunging into the bush.

 

 

Here we are in the mangroves beside the Lane Cove River.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here's a riverside resident passing the time of day further up near West Lindfield.

 

 

 

 

Another way to see this bit is by kayak. You can hire these from the boatshed at the Lane Cove National Park complex just downstream.

 

But we're planning to walk it all.

Surviving the museum

 'Surviving Australia' is the name of one of the galleries at Sydney's Australian Museum. It's packed with scary venomous spiders and snakes, things like sharks and crocodiles that eat you, stingers, biters and buzzy things, all the things the tourists love. And so do we!

It's been 20 years or so since I'd last explored the place, and it's come on quite nicely. There's still the classic galleries with the the fine collections of stuffed birds, insects, marsupials etc. There are skeletons galore, and of course dinosaurs. Menacing, noisy dinosaurs. Australian ones too these days. There are rocks, gemstones and meteorites.

A lot of work has gone into making things very accessible and exciting for kids and for tourists.  

There's also a classy gallery on indigenous Australia, and intelligent displays on environmental degradation and extinctions.

I think an Australian Museum visit is a must for visitors with a few hours to spare and a wish to gain a good quick introduction to the country, and it should probably be on the agenda for all of us locals too now and again.