Covid countdown - the Callicoma Trail and Berowra Creek

A lot of us are doing our time during the Covid-19 'sort-of-lockdown' with the help of bushwalking exercise breaks. In Sydney we're very lucky like this.

Mind you, the bush has never been busier, but fortunately not yet busy enough that you can't do your 'social distancing' correctly.

The other day I revisited the excellent patch of bushland  in the Berowra Valley National Park between Cherrybrook and Westleigh.





The 'Lakes of Cherrybrook'

















Some nice scenery along the Callicoma Trail. The recent rains have made all the difference.

Berowra Creek looking good, especially near its junction with Zig Zag Creek, where the Great North Walk crosses it.

Covid countdown - birds of Cherrybrook

Even with the tightened 'sort-of-lockdown' conditions to be imposed at midnight tonight, we're allowed out for exercise purposes. And when you live near the bush, there's scope for an awful lot of that.

In and around Cherrybrook yesterday I saw this white-throated treecreeper












And here's a white-faced heron

'Social distancing' in the food court and the car park

Hornsby Westfield shopping centre on Monday. It's often hard to get a seat in the food court. Now you can't have one either, but for different reasons.

Toilet paper cafe

A free roll of toilet paper with any beer purchased with lunch, was the special offer at the Coal Loader Cafe in Balls Head. This was three days ago, mind you. It's all changed many times since then, Coronavirus-wise. Cafes as we knew them are gone. They can still do take-away. And the jokes are probably wearing a bit thin.

The good old Spit-to-Manly walk

It works every time. You've got an overseas or interstate visitor. You need an easy but scenic little bushwalk to show off Sydney Harbour in all its glory. The Spit-to-Manly is a very safe first choice.

It's capped off by the ferry ride back to Circular Quay at the end.

This town's worth more than ten dollars!

Gulgong is a little gem of a town, in NSW's Central West, between Dubbo and Mudgee. It was a 19th century gold rush town, and still very much looks the part.

That's presumably why it was famously chosen to be pictured on Australia's first ten dollar note.


















The currency's moved on since then, but it's still the 'ten dollar town', and draws lots of admiring tourists.

What to do after the zoo?

Just down the road from Dubbo Zoo is a very nice little heritage building, run by the National Trust, called Dundullimal Homestead. It's a good spot for a stroll and an afternoon tea once you've completed your zoo circuit. It was built around 1840, as the head station on a 65 square km pastoral property, and it's on the banks of the Macquarie River. It may be Australia's oldest surviving slab hut house. (Wikipedia)

The problem is - and I encountered exactly the same hitch last time I did the Zoo thing - that it closes rather early in the afternoon, just before I arrive in fact. But this time an adjustment was made to the visiting hours by the wonderful lady who runs the place, and my party was treated anyway to tea, talk, and leisurely inspection, all out of hours. Magnificent customer service!

More of Dubbo's big personalities

A black rhino, and a couple of whites

A rather restless Sumatran tiger








A (fake) elephant, and a (very real) lioness

And lots more old favourites

Dubbo's birds

All spotted at Dubbo Zoo, though only one of them was an official exhibit.

Here's an emu.



















And an apostlebird. Wikipedia tells me it's also known as a grey jumper, a lousy jack, or a cwa bird.

And the Australian white ibis. This one's widely known as the 'bin chicken', because of its passion for hanging out in and around rubbish bins, in Sydney parks and elsewhere. Some love it, but most of us do not.

How do you measure up? (....as a rhino)

Dubbo Zoo makes for a great day out, and the best way to navigate the place is by bike.

You get to see the rhinos and things from a safe distance, and you even get to size yourself up as one.















This lady is a Javan rhino

The Black rhino is slightly taller.

















This chap's a White one.

Parkes still dishing it up

It's still one of the things you've got to do if you're passing through Parkes. You've got to visit The Dish. If you time it right, you can even check out the visitor centre and learn lots.

We turned up a bit late in the afternoon. But even so there was a nice little garden to explore, with some interesting astronomically-themed artefacts and learning experiences. There's even a rather brilliant arrangement of two smaller dishes, which illustrate the magnifying powers of parabolas, and enable you to communicate by whisper with somebody stationed 100m away.

Officially the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope, The Dish is put to work on lots of cutting edge deep-space projects involving pulsars and gravity waves and the like.

It's best known though for its use during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, when it received the TV broadcast to the world of most of the astronauts' moon walk.

And of course it starred in the 2000 movie, The Dish.

More Blue Mountains: Govetts Leap again

The tree ferns are sprouting nicely, and there's promising growth on the rest of the trees. The massive bushfires seem like years ago. We're into pestilence instead now.




The waterfall is flowing well too. It's called both Bridal Veil Falls and Govetts Leap, by the way. Same difference.

I'm not sure when we'll next be allowed to venture down into the Grose Valley.

More Blue Mountains: Furbers steps waterfalls

On my post-fire Blue Mountains exploration the other day, I headed down Furbers Steps for a bit, to see how it was looking down there.







It was looking quite good. There had been a fair bit of rain, and here was Witches Leap, the first waterfall you come to, doing its thing.

And here was Katoomba Falls.










The mist made for some very atmospheric views through the rainforest on the way down.

"Just don't do it" won't restock the supermarket shelves

It's 6:55am at Thornleigh Woolworths. There's an orderly queue for the much touted oldies' shopping session. Which is a relief, after all the scary stories about how the oldies could out-monster all the younger shoppers when they put their minds to it!









Inside the store they'd stacked a few packs of toilet paper rolls in the aisle, and your correspondent managed to secure one of the last of them. And a chunk of meat. And a packet of Weetbix,and a few face tissues even.

Off then to Westleigh's Aldi, which turned out to be closed for restocking.

When it reopened, the queue was enormous.

During the morning, our beloved Prime Minister had held a much-awaited press conference about the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic. He told us to stop this panic buying straight away. "Stop it. Just stop it!". He was very annoyed, and he showed it. "Just don't do it!"




'Scotty from Marketing' as he is sometimes kindly referred to, had showed us once again why he is no longer in marketing. Suddenly the queues are many times longer.