Austrian Club back to booming business

The All Nations Bushwalkers called in at the Austrian Club in Frenches Forest today for lunch. Huge platefuls of food got eaten, and quite large volumes of Austrian beer got drunk, so it was a bit of a wonder that the walk was able to resume and get completed otherwise uneventfully.

Covid-19 distancing restrictions have been eased recently, but I was still a bit surprised how many patrons were somehow packed into the place. It's business as usual now, I'd say.

Peak Hill variations

Another trip up the delightful Peak Hill the other day. Delightful, as in it's everyone's favourite pointy-shaped little mountain. It's fairly accessible, and there are lots of variations to how you can get there and back.

It's close to Brooklyn, on the Hawkesbury River, and one round trip we often do involves going in via Porto Ridge, and then bashing our way down a now horribly overgrown creek to Sandy Bay.

There's a spectacular and little-known rock overhang on the way, which houses some aboriginal hand stencils.

The descent this time was by an unexplored (by us) route to the west and then north of the Peak. It was a bit challenging at first, with the usual cliffs and other such obstacles.

It all came together in the end though. Always has done so far.

And there we were, down in Sandy Bay again.

Empty!

A perfect morning for a cold swim at North Narrabeen ocean pool, I thought. I checked the maintenance calendar, and yesterday was the scheduled day. Today should be fine.

Still empty though! Looks like the next high tide might fill it.

Not sure how  this all works. Better luck next time.

PS: I just discovered that Narrabeen is mentioned in a Beach Boys song! Surfing USA in fact! They even played a concert in North Narrabeen Reserve in 1992. Listen here:

Getting the blues to get the girls

I came across this yesterday while bushwalking in the North Rocks area. It's a satin bower bird's bower.

The male bird builds this thing, which is not a nest, but a place to do ritual dances around, and then collects blue things. He's extremely fond of blue things.

And presumably, so are the females. The more blue things he's collected and showing off, the better his chances of getting the girl.

Presumably bright blue things used to be rare and precious. Now there's lots of them and they're nearly all plastic bottle tops, straws, or suchlike. The magic must still work though.

More on them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satin_bowerbird

We were wondering why blue is the chosen colour. Maybe it's the relative rarity of the colour in nature. A bit like we're often attracted to gold? There again, the male bird himself has a blue sheen, and bright blue eyes. We didn't see him yesterday, but here's a picture from the Wikipedia article.

                                          Photo: Joseph C Boone

Back to the beach

North Narrabeen and Turimetta beaches in fact. The water was a bit cold but the sky was blue and everything was as clear and colourful as it gets. 

Back to the bike

The bicycling bushwalkers were out in force the other day, negotiating the in places alarmingly crowded cycle tracks of Olympic Park and thereabouts. A nice day out.

Back to the Mountains

My occasional Thursday adventure bushwalking group reconvened last week, and celebrated with a return to the Blue Mountains. We'd stayed away during the many months of disasters, the natural ones and the both personal and worldwide medical ones.

We revisited the dramatic headlands overlooking the Grose River to the north of Mount Victoria: Asgard Head, Valhalla Head, and Ikara Head. And I've got it all sorted out which one is which now.





We discovered the upper reaches of Asgard Brook, in a rather deep  and steep gully.

Below: the magnificently precipitous cliffs at Asgard Head

Asgard Swamp

Valhalla Head, I think

Ladies Rocks

And............ a dingo turned up!



He wasn't shy, and followed us around for a while. He was probably hungry, given the devastation of the burnt landscape and annihilation of almost everything he'd normally eat. I imagine he was hoping he could charm us into feeding him. There again, if one of us had developed a limp and fallen over........


Ikara Head