Parramasala - and Parra gets moving!

This weekend was the Parramasala Festival weekend in Parramatta. It's the annual 'spicy celebration of cultures' - primarily Indian cultures, that is. And it's colourful, tasty, and loud!

Most of the events are in Prince Alfred Park and Harris Park. I checked out Prince Alfred Park on Saturday afternoon, and watched a Rajasthani folk group, a fashion show featuring Western Sydney designers, and a terrific troupe of Bollywood dancers, from the Natraj Dance Studio.

Oh dear, the dancers have come down into the audience, and they're wanting us all to join in!


Yours truly doesn't have a dancing bone in his body, but most of the crowd find theirs, and don't they get into it just!

The Goods Line

In New York they've got the High Line - a disused piece of elevated railway track that's now a very popular linear park. Well in Sydney we've now got the Goods Line. It's a similar concept. It's not as long or as elevated, but it's a nice little creation all the same.

It too follows an old freight line - through Ultimo, and it connects the pedestrian tunnel along the southern end of Central Station with Darling Harbour and the Powerhouse Museum. It extends the current walkway which passes the ABC building and UTS.

There are historic references and information boards, there are flower gardens, and lots of whimsical little touches like the solid iron chairs and table tennis tables.


I also found it the perfect spot to take in the full majesty of the Frank Gehry designed 'crumpled paper bag' building of the UTS Business School, the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building.

Ode to the fire trail

In this case one of the fire trails of the Berowra Valley National Park, near Arthurs Circle in Mt Colah.

In the pecking order of bushwalking routes, the humble fire trail has a somewhat lowly status. But at this time of year especially, it can offer a very pleasant and rewarding experience.

Attractive wildflowers, happy songbirds, scribbly gums, beautiful Sydney red gums, and quite dramatic vistas across the Berowra Valley.

 

I'm sure the trails around there have existed for a long time, but I only just discovered them, courtesy of the new map that just got printed. The National Park was only gazetted a couple of years ago, hence the map. Incidentally, they don't sell maps at many of the outdoor/bushwalking type shops anymore. Everyone relies on their GPS or their phone apps. I had to go to the specialist map shop in Parramatta.

Fiesta! (and Sydney sizzles)

It was the Darling Harbour Latin American Fiesta at the weekend, and the place was full of  party music and South American dancers - fabulous creatures with scanty costumes and heavenly bodies!



No wonder the buildings were melting in the sun!

On the trail of North West Rail (Part 2)

Your fearless correspondent continued his tour of inspection the other day of progress on the North West Rail link.

Here's where the marching column of  viaduct piers has got to so far, their progress guarded by a (friendly) security guard.

The Sydney Metro (otherwise known as the North West Rail Link) will burst out of its tunnels at Bella Vista, and become a 'skytrain',  running on a viaduct for the last few kilometres. The support piers are being churned out in front of our eyes, and there's a big gantry crane thing that puts the box girders in place on the piers.




I went out as far as Rouse Hill Town Centre, which will be served by the train one day. The Town Centre is an award-winning indoor-outdoor sort of shopping & community centre, which does have a fairly good feel to it.



 As good a place as any for my morning coffee.

A walk called Bruce

I'd been hearing about this lost-and-found-again bushwalk for a while,and jumped at the chance to find it for myself the other day, with my Friday bushwalking group.




Bruce was the surname of the Railways Dept surveyor who originally planned the track in 1931, as a maintenance track for a new power line that the Railways had got the job of putting in. It went from Blackheath to Bullaburra in the Blue Mountains, and it was promoted as a bushwalking track until World War 2, when it somehow got forgotten. It became overgrown and lost, and parts of it stolen for other purposes. Then in more recent times it got rediscovered and renovated by various legendary bushwalkers. Its continued existence does not seem to be celebrated by the National Parks people, the Blue Mountains City Council people, or the maps people, all of whom probably just see it as an extra expense if they were expected to maintain it or map it. Today it can be negotiated from Medlow Bath (starting from the Katoomba airstrip) to Wentworth Falls, and then from the other side of Wentworth Falls to Bullaburra.

We like it though. It's big enough to feel you've done a bit, and you get to see hanging swamps, cliffs and canyons, thicker forest, and do at least five significant downs and ups of 100-200m or more, to cross the various creeks flowing north towards the Grose River. Some of it's along fire trails under the power line, but a lot of it is on perfectly pleasant walking track away from the power line a bit.

There were new and old relics to see along the way - mostly new fire service signs or bits of old power poles. This kept our accompanying historian Keith happy. We saw no snakes unfortunately (I love snakes), but mountain dragons and other little lizards were in attendance. There were waratahs in flower, plus Keith identified two rare and special flowers found only in the Upper Blue Mountains.




Although most of the track is easy to follow, sometimes with track markers every few metres, some of it isn't quite like that. We lost it at one stage for half an hour or so, while we thrashed about in the bush until we suddenly got lucky and hit on it again.

As usual, a good day out in the bush. I plan to put it on the regular programme of my bushwalking club at some stage soon, now that it's well and truly found again.

Read more on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce's_Walk