Bondi to Manly Walk

I recently completed the 80 km Bondi to Manly Walk. I did it over four days walking 20 km each day carrying a 12 kg pack plus my camera (another 2 kg) the whole way. My feet are tired and blistered but my soul is uplifted! This walk offers magnificent views of Sydney Harbour the whole way. It hugs the shoreline for most of the route and when you do walk through residential areas the grand homes also offer a magnificent view! (Way beyond my budget!) Your journey will take in sandy beaches, remnant bushland, residential footpaths, and parkland. I give this experience a 5-star rating! If you like walking, have a reasonable level of fitness and can manage hills and stairs, this is the walk for you!

Bondi to Manly Walk Route Guidance.

The Bondi to Manly Walk opened in December 2019 and came about after a huge collaborative effort between municipal councils, Aboriginal Land Councils, various government agencies and some commercial sponsors. There is a great webpage which you should very definitely check out before you plan your trip. You can download a very useful app which has an interactive map showing your real-time location.

There is also an extremely detailed and very accurate walker’s guide which I would recommend printing off. Running to 21 pages it is broken into sections with detailed, sensible instructions. My travelling companion and I found only two places where the notes were “incorrect” but this was due to sudden temporary closures that the guide’s writers would not have known about. (PS: These “errors” have been updated after I sent them an email)

One thing to note, which was not included in the walker’s guide, was the locked gate at Sub Base Platypus just past Kirribilli Wharf. It is not opened until 7 AM so don’t bother catching the very early ferry if you are starting your day here! We had to wait 20 minutes until the security fellow came to open it but filled in the time eating the breakfast we had packed and planned to eat a little later.

These gates, just after Kirribilli Wharf don’t open till 7 AM

Do the walk your way

The walk is well signposted with lots of distinctive black and yellow waymarkers. (480 of them apparently!) The walker’s guide is designed so that each section of the walk ends at some sort of public transport facility, mostly ferry wharves but also bus and train routes. The idea is that you end each day’s walk, return to your base and then go back to your previous ending point to start the next section. You can obviously break it up as you like but the website offers several suggested itineraries.

The distinctive waymarkers are on the ground and on telegraph poles

You can do the walk in either direction although the notes are written in the direction from Bondi to Manly. As I said there are plenty of waymarkers but in some locations, the waymarkers have either been removed or are missing which made the notes and app map a crucial adjunct.

While some fit folks have done the whole 80 km in one go, my walking buddy and I did 4 consecutive days and stayed in Sydney each night. This allowed us an early start each day to beat the heat and the forecasted late showers. We finished each 20 km section by lunchtime and returned to the hotel for a rest and shower before doing some other touristy things in the afternoon.

We used the suggested 4-day itinerary as follows:

Day 1: Bondi Beach to Rose Bay Wharf.

Train to Bondi Junction and then a bus to the beach. A ferry back to Circular Quay from Rose Bay.

Day 2: Rose Bay to Kirribilli Wharf.

Ferry back to Rose Bay then returning by ferry from Kirribilli to Circular Quay.

Day 3: Kirribilli to the Spit Bridge.

Return to Kirribilli by ferry and then returning by bus from The Spit to Wynyard Station.

Day 4: The Spit Bridge to Manly.

A bus back to The Spit and then a ferry from Manly to Circular Quay and finally a train all the way home to Wollongong. (After a celebratory ice cream!)

What to take with you

You should take all the things you would normally carry on a hike. Snacks, water, a first aid kit, wet weather gear, a hat, camera, and your smartphone if you’re going to use the app. The track has a LOT of hills and steps so carry the lightest pack you can. If you are not returning to the same base each night you will, of course, have to carry your clothes and toiletries. You probably don’t need to carry 14 kg! I carried the heavy pack because I am “in training” for my trek in Tasmania in March when I will need to carry everything. I wanted to test out my legs and back!

Surprisingly even though you are walking through Sydney’s beachside suburbs there are not many shops or cafes directly on the pathway, so you will need water and snacks. There are some cafes on the route and you certainly won’t go hungry but a muesli bar and fruit in your pack will allow you to stop and sit on a sandstone boulder and watch the ocean wherever you fancy.

There are plenty of public toilets and these along with water refill stations, are highlighted on the app map. Most were clean and had plenty of soap, toilet paper and were supplied with Sydney’s lovely clean drinking water. Hand sanitiser is a must in this day and age so pack that too!

Wrapping up your day

Of course, you can walk as long as you like each day. You could carry your cossies and a towel and have a swim at any of the lovely little beaches along the way. You could stop and have lunch at one of the cafes. We chose to soldier on at a fairly rapid rate as the weather forecast included an afternoon thunderstorm every day. We ended our days with some other activities and stayed at the Oaks Sydney Goldsbrough Suites in Pyrmont which is very close to Darling Harbour.

On Day 1 we headed around to Darling Harbour and sat on the outside of the open-air on-water cinema that was set up. The sound wasn’t great but we could see the screen easily and watched for free! The following night we sat in a pub and were entertained by a spectacular thunderstorm which had people unexpectedly sodden. The next night we went to the cinema and saw Nomadland (highly recommended!) and on our final night, we went to the Australian Museum. Sydney, in summer, has plenty to offer!

Pyrmont was a great location to use as a base. It is close to both Darling Harbour and Central Station which gave us plenty of options to connect to public transport at the start and end of each day. It also has some great pubs, restaurants and supermarkets so you can mix and match dining options. Our hotel had a kitchenette which was very handy too.

This walk was a great opportunity to see parts of Sydney I had never seen before and I would recommend it to both local and international travellers.

Camping adventures

What’s not to love about a great camping adventure?

I love camping adventures! When I was a kid they were the preferred holiday style on my mother’s side. While my own nuclear family had very little in the way of camping gear, we would join the canvas city set up at places like Green Patch for weekends and extended holidays. My happy memories of the camping adventures are strong, but the recall of actual details is low. (Perhaps my Chief Editor will add a comment below to correct my poor recollections?)

My Hundt family camping adventures were the real deal. By that I mean, they were not in fancy caravan parks with amenities but in camp grounds where you needed to look after your own wastes and shower from a canvas bag hung from a tree. Translation: The kids didn’t have a wash other than swimming in the ocean/lake and there was a wee “Wee tent” or a designated latrine area in the bushes. The tents belonged to my Grandma and Papa and other aunts and uncles. There was a communal cooking area and various sleeping tents. The cars were parked Wild-West-Wagon style to set up a perimeter.

Selecting a flat spot, large enough to accommodate the tents, was left up to the camp master, Papa. As a Scout Leader, he knew his stuff. Once the survey was complete, the heavy bundles of neatly folded white and green canvas were hauled out from cars and taken to their assigned spots. Everyone had a part to play in getting them set up. The unfurling was left to the older kids and adults and the delivery of the various wooden tent poles, guy ropes, tent pegs assigned to children of appropriate size. (The photos above are scans of old slides)

Come back at meal time!

The troupe of seven cousins (ranging from 5 – 15) were set free during the day and reported back to camp for lunch and dinner. The rest of the time we played in sandhills, in the water and on the shoreline looking for treasure. I’d like to think there was an adult somewhere watching from a distance but there probably wasn’t! Cousin Susan, at 15 was likely charged with this responsibility. We would get outrageously sunburned. We would be covered in insect bites. We ate a LOT of cheese and spaghetti jaffles cooked over a campfire. But we were safe and happy.

Lake Tabourie

As a teenager, my Aunty Colleen and Uncle Graeme continued the camping adventures but had moved to a more or less permanent camp in Lake Tabourie Caravan and Campground. They’d set up with a group of friends at the beginning of the school holidays and stay put for the duration. People would come and go. My brother and I would go down for a few weeks in the long summer break.

Our activities here were a little more structured although still more or less unsupervised. We had the option of joining in on the Christian Holiday Groups that occupied these places in the ‘70s. They would run activities like craft groups, liberally sprinkled with Scripture of course. There was a shuttle bus that would go into the nearby town of Burrill Lake in the evenings and here we would watch movies in the open-air theatre, sitting in chairs made from a strip of canvas strung on two metal poles. I remember watching all the (original) Planet of the Apes series here.

Pre-Schoolies – Schoolies

When I graduated high school, the Ex and I went on a camping adventure to Ballina, with two of our school buddies. (These days this post-school graduation trip is called Schoolies). We told our parents that Trish and I would be sharing one tent and Mark and the Ex would be in the other. (Yeah right!) It rained a lot and we spent a lot of time in pubs playing cards. But still, I recall it as a happy time.

As we got older and richer, The Ex morphed into a 5-star hotel man. Ready access to fine food and wine was the priority. Our 1980’s style Wolf-of-Wall Street jobs meant we didn’t go on many holidays anyway. Most of our downtime was spent renovating houses or with my parents who had moved to Bellingen. Sitting on their verandah looking out over cow paddocks was as close as we came to the great outdoors.

The last extended tent camping adventure I had was 14 years ago when I was teaching my daughter how to drive. To get her logbook hours up, we went on a road trip through western NSW and alternated between camping and rural pubs.

Glamping

In 2013, I flew to Adelaide and hired a camper van to do a circuit through North-West Victoria, Broken Hill and back to Adelaide. Now, THIS became my favourite holiday – glamping! Accommodation, transport and dining all wrapped up in the one package! The ability to pull over and make a cup of tea wherever you felt like was so appealing! Pulling into the caravan park with nothing to do beyond plugging in the electricity! Bliss!

Such simple healthy pleasures! Camping has been shown to be really good for your physical and mental health. You can read those benefits here in a post by Sports Fitness Advisor, it’s a US site but just as relevant to us here in Aus. Waking up with the dawn light and enjoying the dark night resets your body clock among other things. I am not sure if these benefits extend to glamping! I have not yet tried hardcore camping which requires you to carry EVERYTHING in a backpack to a remote wilderness, but I will soon!

My own (new) tent!

Why this trip down memory lane? I have bought a tent for my upcoming Great Southern Road Trip. My plan is to camp most of the time interspersed with forays into cabins and hotels. My return to camping is motivated by my memories and as a way of saving some money (see my Year of Zero series). I investigated a camper van but since I’m switching States and doing a walking tour and going to Flinders Island, it would not be economical to have it sitting parked for 12 days. On top of that, it is almost impossible to hire one! With Australians confined to the continent due to ongoing concerns for COVID overseas, EVERYONE is road-tripping!

The tent is EASY to erect. The main support poles are attached and it goes up a bit like an umbrella. It’s big enough to stand in and while nominally a four person tent it will be plenty big enough for me and my gear. I still have to get a few things like a camp bed.

I’ll be doing a practice weekend camp with my grandson in a few weeks in a place not too far from home, to check I have all the gear I need. I have already set it up in my garage to test the “instant-up” claim and yes it is easy, but do you think I can fold it up neatly and get it back into that little bag it came in?? Not easy! 🙂

I can’t wait!

Urban Nature Study – Part 1

Earlier this year I volunteered to take part in an Urban Nature Study for an Honours student at the University of Wollongong. The study involved two Zoom interviews and three urban walks. On these walks I was required to take notice and record my interactions with urban nature. This included what I could hear, see, smell, and feel. To help me remember what I observed I made notes on the voice recorder app.

During the walks I was encouraged to take photos of the things I saw. It was pretty much the perfect sort of study for me! To top it off it we were still under some COVID restrictions so it was not as if I was doing anything else.

The student has submitted her work and I have permission to publish my contributions. I am not sure what her ‘findings’ were. Here is the first of my 3 walks. I have changed some of the street names.

Urban Nature Diary Day 1 – 13^th June 2020

Saturday Beach Walk

My walk today was one of the two routes I take frequently. I call this route my “beach walk”. The other is my “neighbourhood walk”. I sometimes run these routes rather than walk. Today, I ran part of the way and walked part of the way as I was stopping to take photos. All up it took me about 1 hour 20 minutes.

This route takes me along Crown Street, past the hospital and railway station into the CBD, I then walk down to Smith Street and head to the beach from here. I walk past Levendi’s (a cafe), along the harbour, past the lighthouses and then past WIN Stadium. When I have the time (as on weekends) I extend the route and walk along the beach to the end of the golf course cut back up Swan Street under the railway bridge, up Gladstone Street, X Ave, Y Street, and then finally back onto Z Street and home. This is a little over 8 km. If I’m in a hurry, I cut back up to the WEC (Wollongong Entertainment Centre) and head back home through the Mall. If I’m running, I can do it in 50 minutes.

And we’re off…

This morning I left home at around 7:30 AM. There was a partial cloud cover. It was fine and crisp. It had been raining overnight so there were puddles and wet leaves on the ground

My phone said it was 12.7^oC and dead calm. I had dressed in long tights and a long sleeve lycra hoodie, joggers and socks. I normally listen to music or podcasts while I walk. Today it was a podcast.

The ground was wet, and the leaves made it slippery, so I picked my way out my driveway. The large liquid amber at the corner of my driveway drops so many leaves and I have slipped there before so I am always cautious.

The creepy tree

Just before you get to the hospital there is a huge Morton Bay Fig in a tiny park. There is very little room left in the park for anything but the tree. (Image 1) I really like this tree and have wondered how old it is and what it must have been like before it was hemmed in by the road and houses. It would make a good climbing tree as the branches hang down low to the ground. However, it would be near impossible to climb as the limbs are very broad and smooth. The buttress roots spread out for at least 5 metres in all directions. I call it the “creepy tree” because it does not matter what time of day it is, the massive tree is always casting a shadow on the park. It smells dank and composty.

Noisy traffic in the shopping precinct

The noise of the traffic makes it hard for me to hear any birds, but I did notice some dead or close to dead earthworms who had boldly ventured onto the pavement when it was raining and had now become trapped on the drying pavement. A bit of styrofoam captures my attention and I get annoyed and feel that the hi-fi store (likely source of the foam), should be held to account for the amount of foam that blows out of their bins and ends up as pollution on the street near their shop.

This part of the route is in my opinion, nothing but “urban”. It is paved and built up. There are few gardens as most of the premises are commercial. In the CBD itself, the council is attempting to green things up. (Images 2 – 4)

It’s sad to see that their bright little street flower boxes are the target of vandals (Image 5) If there are council workers watering the plants or replanting what has been ripped out, I’ll thank them for their work so hopefully they don’t get too downhearted that not everyone appreciates the little bit of colour the boxes provide. I notice the raindrops sticking to the leaves of plants. (Image 6)

Wollongong Harbour

Once I get to the harbour, I join the many others who are enjoying a walk or a run on this nice morning. The clouds are making a dramatic backdrop to the little lighthouse and Belmore Basin. Some pelicans are preening, and people are out in kayaks paddling on the smooth water. (Image 7)

There is a reasonable swell and some surfers are clustered at the end of City Beach. The water must be colder now as most are wearing wet suits. (images 8 and 9)

It’s warming up and I am regretting that I didn’t wear a T-shirt and jacket rather than the hoodie which I can’t take off.

On the Beach

It’s dead calm. (Image10) the air is clear and fresh, but I lament that it is not as clear as it was a few weeks ago when we were deep in COVID lockdown and the sky had a fresh luminous blue with no pollution hanging about in a brown haze.

Once I get to WIN stadium and the footy field/golf course junction I head down to the beach. I take a lot of energy from the ocean and enjoy seeing it every day. For me, it’s peaceful and rugged and energising all at the same time. It’s mid tide so there is some compacted sand to make the walk easier. I have to dodge a few incoming waves to prevent getting my shoes wet but this adds to the fun. The sand shows evidence of last night’s rain with the little pock marks dimpling the sand. (image 11)

There are a few shells. (image 12) Last time I was on the beach there were lots of rocks and pebbles at the wave line and I notice that this time there are very few rocks. I wonder if they were carried away by last week’s big surf or if I was at a different part of the beach. Up ahead I see the little pebble “garden” I was looking for and figure that they do probably get moved as a result of the tide. (image 14.)

Not a rock

I take especial interest in an unusual green “rock” (Image 13). I pick it up and turn it over in my hands. I decide that it’s not a rock after all and probably a piece of roof tile that has been washed down a creek. I’m on the lookout for sea-glass[1] as I collect interesting bits of that.

This is an off-leash beach but there are few dogs. A couple of gulls fly past skimming close to the sand. The air smells salty but since there is no wind to whip the sea spray into my face, I don’t taste it.

As I re-join the road and the buildings, I can hear some rainbow lorikeets squawking and fluttering in a large flowering gum near the dog training park on Swan St. There are some magpies or crows cawing as they fly overhead. I pass a garden which has some nice succulents spilling over the fence and I break off a small piece to bring home and plant in my own garden.

The home stretch

I am about two kilometres from home and I am now very much regretting the choice of outfit! The sun is rising higher and I am getting hotter! It’s a balance between going faster to get home quicker and overheating! On Gladstone Ave there are a few private gardens with some lovely old roses, but today most only have a few straggly petals left. There is also a house with a reasonable size quince tree. They don’t pick the quince and they fall on the ground every year. Each year I say to myself, “next year I am going to knock on their door and ask if I can have them before they go rotten!”

The large date palms on X street, always make me think of the cover of Hotel California (an album by the Eagles).

(I included that detail because the person doing the interview was very young and possibly not a 1970’s music fan!)

I cut across the little park on the corner of X Street and my joggers get wet from the grass. The Bird of Paradise flowers catch my eye and a few spiders’ webs in the neighbour’s garden are glistening with rain.

I am home and it’s time for a cup of tea!

[1] Glass that gets washed up onto the beach and has been made smooth and translucent by the action of the sand and waves.

A Win-Win!

I’m a bit of a research study enthusiast and this study combined a few things I like to do, walk, take photos and write! In addition to that I was helping someone out so it contributed to my happiness! Doing good for others boosts your mood! As I said I have not seen the student’s finished work or even really understand the purpose of her study. However, having to stop and think about how I interacted and experienced nature in my urban setting was interesting and made me feel a real sense of connectedness.

Apart from this study I am also participating in a two long term health studies. One called the 45 and up study which has a long questionnaire every 5 years; and another 3 year study on dementia and lifestyle which has frequent questionnaires which alternate between eating and exercising habits. Once each year there is a comprehensive set of cognitive and memory tests.

I have also just done a five week stint being a “patient” for a trainee medical professional to assist them with their tele-health skills.

Being a writing frugalist, I wasn’t going to “waste” an extended piece of my own writing without including it here! It was a win-win! She got some observations for her research: I got a blog post! (Maybe 2 more if I publish the others!)