How to Have an Adventure

This post is a "how to" guide for anyone interested in living life a bit closer to the edge.  Not too close, mind you. Just a little closer.

Step one:

Have a free day.

Step two:

Take a train away from the city, away from all the areas previously explored and traveled.

Step three:

Get out where it looks interesting, have a walk around (in this example, the walk around was in Hornsby), get back on the train and go back to familiar ground.

Step four:

Realize that Anna has you on the wrong train - now going yet further from the city and the familiar.  No matter, it was a free day.  Something interesting is bound to turn up.  And the trains run the other direction also, all we need to do is get out and catch a different one ...

Step five:

As soon as something interesting appears out the window, get off the train.  In this case, it was a walking bridge spotted by Destiny at the Mt. Kuring-gai stop.  So here we 'alit' from the train ...

Step six:

Get your bearings, race across a freeway to see if the walking trails described on the signage are easy to access ... discover they are not and race back across the freeway.  Do the little walking bridge (which is actually a pedestrian overpass across another freeway ...), take a leisurely stroll around the village, find a proper bridge for walking across second freeway and locate the trail head for the "Great North Walk".  A little asphalt trail through the trees, heading down into a valley.  Think Mirror Lake.  But steep down.  A potential 3.8 km or some such distance, piece of cake for us.

Some of the first photos of the walk included the unusual 3 foot tall flowers that hung upside down.  Umbrella like.

Step seven:

When the asphalt trail runs out and you are walking on a muddy track ... just keep going.  And sure enough, the mud quickly turned into rocks and roots, a mountain type path.  Down and up, up and down.  

Step eight:

Realize that you are now committed to coming out the other end.  However, it was noted at the beginning of this trail a sign that indicated a bridge was out 'somewhere' and that through travel to some point was not possible - but since we have no map and no bearings, what did that mean to us? Not much.  Carry on!

The views all around us were spectacular, little waterfalls, rocky creek beds (which we criss-crossed several times), more ups than downs in terms of elevation changes ... the total elevation change from where we started to the valley floor was - a lot.  I will have to do some research later to actually find out more regarding the topographical details.

Step eight:

Be glad for the banana and apple that are in your bag.  Of course we had no water, but it was a moist day and not too hot.  Thank goodness.

Sort of like calling the Chilkoot trail a stroll.

A close up of a shiny gum tree; probably 4 feet in diameter.  

A boardwalk through a salt marsh.  What lives in salt marshes?  The marsh grass was quite flattened in areas.  When Destiny suggested crocodiles, we picked up the pace.  So far our wildlife encounters were frogs (heard but not seen) and a number of birds, including a Lyrebird or two.

Step nine:

We just passed the bridge that was very obviously "out".  At this point, the creek had widened out to a significant river.  And why, oh why, didn't I take a picture of it?  Probably because I was out of puff and it was, according to the next sign, further out in the direction we were headed, than it was to turn back the way we had come.  But the way we had come had been particularly arduous ... so in hopes that forward was perhaps a little more moderate - we plowed on.  

Step ten:

Be aware of how much daylight you have.  This little adventure began around noon, and the sun goes down early in Aus in June.  Under the canopy of this rain forest valley, it was already kind of dark.  So as the hands on my watch approached 4 p.m., we were hoping to get well out and back to civilization before 5.

Step eleven:

Just keep going - and we did find a sign that said "Berowra station 2 km" which I hopefully thought was a train station while Destiny considered that it could be a ranger station.  Two km is a long ways when you're tired of walking uphill (and down again) over and over again on uneven ground.  But, as my friend Mary's words were in my head saying "You can do hard things" we sweated and plodded on.  Well, at least I plodded.  Happily, we could eventually hear traffic, dogs barking and see a couple of buildings in the far distance.  And, as luck would have it, it was a train station!

Step twelve:

All's well that ends well. No tourists were injured in the execution of this adventure.  Some beautiful land was explored, and sadly under photographed.  I'd happily repeat the trek but with some better preparation knowing what to expect.  Of course, then it wouldn't really be so much of an adventure.