Fire trails of Lockdown 2 - Some Cherrybrook trails

 

 

 

 

Blackwattle Trail

 

 

 

 

Patricia Trail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Right & below: Carmen Trail

Edward Bennett Oval, Cherrybrook

 

 

A very nice little strolling park, with an exceptionally neighbourly atmosphere, I thought. Maybe because it's tucked away in a nice spot, away from all the through traffic. Like many, it's got an adventure playground, and we watched some very gung-ho small girls trying to do a 360 with their basket swing!

And still more Lockdown 2 exercise parks!

 

The Lakes of Cherrybrook, Cherrybrook

 

 

Golden Jubilee Field, North Wahroonga, with its revamped Jubes Mountain Bike Park

 

 

Turramurra Memorial Park, Turramurra

Covid clusters closing in

 

There have been a few worrying Covid-19 clusters around my part of northern Sydney recently. Last week it was looking like Sydney was coming good again, and wouldn't be going the way of Melbourne. Some of the hot spots are schools, like the Catholic girls school above, in Cherrybrook. There was a TV news crew outside as I passed it this morning.Premier Gladys was muttering yesterday about it being no time for schools to be organising religious retreats, and it seems that is what this one had been doing.

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

More fire trails

This time I explored the fire trails that circumnavigate the suburb of Cherrybrook. In particular, the Kentia Trail, the Carmen Trail, and the Daphne Trail. There are, as ever, some quite scenic sights to behold.

There are colourful cliff faces, and sunlit vistas across valleys.

There are a couple of recent man-made additions: bioretention filters, which capture pollution from stormwater run-off, using sand and appropriate plants.

And speaking of man-made additions, the fire trails themselves are here to protect the houses above from bushfires, by acting as a barrier, and by providing access for firefighters to fight fires, and to start them (as in hazard reduction burning). The Daphne Trail was used for a burn a few weeks ago.

There's a kind of beauty in the stark imagery and colours after a bushfire. And the bush does grow back, but the weeds tend to grow first, and the ecology is probably not really adapted to fires coming as frequently as they do these days.

On the trail of North West Rail (Part 1)

Sydney's new train arrives in Cherrybrook. It's even got passengers. There they are below!

Alas, the North West Rail Link is a few years away still, and the happy passengers aren't actually riding on their single-deck, driverless, Metro train. They're two dimensional ones on a poster at the station construction site.

At least there is finally something happening to extend the suburban train network. Tunnels are being bored right now between Epping and Bella Vista, and the line will then go to Rouse Hill and beyond on an overhead section.

There are contentious issues around it all though. Such as that it will be deliberately incompatible with the current double-decker train system, and that it will be given to a private company to run. The shiny new Epping to Chatswood line, recently built by us taxpayers and running beautifully, will be given to the private operator too. Passengers from the north west, who will have been coaxed away from their current fast direct express bus services, will have to change trains at Chatswood, and then probably stand for the rest of their trip into the city. Passengers from the stations between Hornsby and Epping, who currently get direct services to the city, will probably have to change trains TWICE once this thing is going.

I thought it was time to do my tour of inspection of progress to date. Most of us have a soft spot for trains after all. I headed first to the Cherrybrook site, where I was able to peer in on the opening to a big hole, around which was lots of activity, a conveyor bringing up a steady stream of pulverised Sydney sandstone, and curved concrete sections which were clearly to become the tunnel lining.

The photo of said concrete sections had to be taken through a tiny accidental gap in the surrounding wall. There were serious looking signs forbidding unauthorised entry to the site, and there were none of the usual viewing holes that you get at so many building sites. It was almost like they aren't very proud of what they're doing.



It was the same story at the other  station sites I checked out. The Bella Vista Berlin Wall is pictured on the right.


Here's the project's official website, with maps and things:  http://nwrail.transport.nsw.gov.au/  (It's rather good actually - there are simulated train rides and things so you can join the other happy passengers already!)