Walk #64 - Fearsome Schmearsome

Went up the last big hill today. It wasn't nearly as tough as I expected. Or rather, I'm much fitter than six months ago. It was a decent work-out but it was no more than that.

Saw another brush turkey. Heard him kicking up the leaves on my way back down The Rampart. He wandered out of the undergrowth on the up side of the road and ambled across the road. I was maybe ten feet away from him by this time, untangling my camera from amongst the muesli bars and waterbottles. He saw me at last and peered at me shortsightedly. When he realised I was human he twitched and hurried into the bushes on the down side. I stopped and listened but there was no female with him.

There was a big flock of galahs screeching overhead as well and a few kookaburras having a bit of a chuckle further up the ridge. On the flat parts on the Peninsula (which is most of it) the kookas only laugh at dawn and dusk. But on the ridges I’ve heard them at all hours of the day. There were plenty of magpies hopping about investigating things as usual. But none of them looked like swooping. The return of the cool days probably.



There’s a weird green thing up there. It's a sorta onion-shaped thing on a stalk that sits high on the ridgeside and no-one knows what it's for. But I found out today it's a reservoir. Or maybe it's an alien thingy and it just says reservoir on the sign. The top’s bristling with aerials.

(You know I'm kidding about the alien thingy, right? Don't be emailing me and telling me how you got probed. Unless you got pictures.)

From up there I could see down to Umina Beach, over Patonga Ridge (AKA Mt Ettalong) to Barrenjoey Head and Pittwater, down along Brisbane Avenue and Whatsit Street, across to the ridge above Phegan’s Bay, out to Ettalong and Riley’s Bay and beyond to Brisbane Water and Gosford. Quite a view. More than on the Plateau walk.

When I went up there on the bus I got the view along the length of Umina Beach. Didn’t get that this time. There was nowhere high enough to stand. I’ll go up there on the bus again and get it out the window.

Walking along The Rampart I could see the surf down on Umina Beach and hear it very faintly. At the finish of the walk the sky was filling up again with grey-bottomed cumulus clouds. Up on Castle Circuit it had been sunny and the perfume of jasmine and roses and wistaria filled the air. Summer’s definitely on its way.

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