On The Wagon

There are terrible pictures on our TV screens from the floods in Pakistan. There are as many Pakistanis displaced and homeless as the entire population of Australia. Apparently the response of the world has been largely apathetic and slow to come. Following the lead of our local ABC which ran an appeal, I felt I wanted to donate, but just slinging them 50 bucks seemed a bit easy and a gratuitious-without-thought gesture and as I am also on a budget presently,I decided to give up WINE for a WEEK and donate the proceeds in a very very small symbolic gesture of empathy.. useless I know, but I feel I'm doing something!

I started yesterday...6 nights to go!!
As an added bonus, I'm sure my liver is happy too.

Fuller's Bridge to Mowbray Park

Walk stats: 4 kms
Difficulty: Easy



Only a short walk today.. an easy 4 kilometres with a lunch stop in the middle.
We took along the new sticks to give them a try..
(Yes since we are now bushwalkers, we thought we needed the proper accoutrements - and we certainly could have put them to good use on our last walk - it was rugged - well to our beginner standards anyway!)



The walk wasn't very nice scenically, being mangrovey,gloomy and depressing and sort of opressive down beside the river. I was reminded vividly of the Bogle Chandler murders and discovered when I got home and did some research, this WAS the exact spot their bodies were found. As we we walked we intermittently passed humps of something covered with black plastic. I was afraid WE were going to find our own set of bodies along the way. However things improved further into the walk, and there was a very convenient lunch stop along the way.
The river itself was a deep deep green and quite pretty once we had climbed to the ridge above and could look down at it. The bush was also a more familar and happy type! (although a bit daunting to realize at one stage,the only sign of civilisation we could see was the chimney of the crematorium poking above the treeline.(click on the pic..u can see it straight ahead)..quite spooky ...but I suppose these things have to be somewhere.

At the end of the walk, was the weir I fell in 20 years ago while rescuing Megan's white thongs!! This time it had a very prominent warning sign(maybe I wasn't the only one to fall in over the years!) and I rather think there must have been a whole lot more water back then! This time I negotiated the weir with no mishaps :)
So all in all, I'm glad to tick this little walk off, but I wouldn't probably put it high on the list of places to take visiting tourists!

Democratic Rights

Saturday saw us exercising our democratic rights.... i.e. the right to enjoy the sausage sizzle and cake stall while we attend to the deciding of our country's future.

Below is the elderly Greens volunteer giving out his "How-to-vote" card to the elderly punter.
Megan also enjoyed the sausage sizzle

This year I picked the best of a bad bunch,( and not much of a bunch either, as we had only 3 candidates for the reps.) Barry took his voting pedantry to a new level, downloading and practising his senate form beforehand, to ensure all 84 candidates were EXACTLY where he wanted them:). It was worth it for the amusement it provided us..I rather doubt he achieved anything in the final result!

Three Odd Events

Sunday was "Odd Event Day".

Event No 1 .. a freakish , came-out-of-nowhere and disappeared-as-fast-as-it-arrived hail storm.


Event No2. - odd as in not a usual occurrence, but very very nice. Lovely lovely masterchef Italian neighbour cooked up a huge pasta bake and randomly sent a platter next door for our lunch!:) ..and coincidentally, because we were inside tucking into the pasta, we weren't driving around in the hailstorm.


and Event No3. Barry went to the shops and bought 7 pairs of pants!!:) Haha this is hysterical... excessive for anyone, and Barry has probably only bought 7 pairs in his entire adult life... He believes in bulk buying obviously... He should have enough to see him out circa 101 I reckon!!haha

Davidson- Roseville Bridge.

Walk Stats: 10kms.
Difficulty: Moderate - Not an easy track and much scrambling over rocks.



The walking campaign continues with vigour.

This last Sunday we became very ambitious and set out to tackle Davidson to the Roseville Bridge- a distance of 10 kilometres.

It was tougher than we thought. The track is not so much a bushwalking track as a rock climbing,scrambling track and the first 5 kilometres went very slowly as we scrambled over wet mossy rocks slippery from the rain. At one stage I got Dad to sit down on a log with the creek behind him, so I could take a photo. 2 seconds later, the log snapped and he turtled onto his back with his legs in the air inches from the creek. And what did I do??? I put the camera in my pocket and rushed to help him and check his wellbeing. Note to self: Seize a photo op when it happens!!! :)

Lunchbreak in the middle of the creek:

It's August..the wattle is just coming out:)


Eventually... Roseville Bridge came into sight..and Megs and Christopher rescued us!!:)

New Car

Jenny has a new car. Hyundai i30. . She picked it p today and brought it straight over so I could check it out. We went for a run in it up to the supercentre. It has an icebox and coffee holders..I'm very jealous:)

Sunday Walk - Cascades track

As I had a cold and wasn't feeling so crash hot, I decided our Sunday Walk would be a quick- close-to-home affair, that didn't require too much effort - just enough to feel as though I'd done something. With that in mind, we set off thinking we'd go down to the Cascades (about 2ks away). Once we got there though,seduced by the bush and the sunshine, we thought, "well why not walk up the other side and see what's there".. I'm telling you now just to save yourselves the bother.. what's there is a lot of very steep hills and St Ives.



So having walked to St Ives, there was no alternative but to walk back.


The bush was lovely, lots of water in the creek and over the cascades, and lots of people on the track..the Oxfam walk must be soon, there were a lot of practisers out walking and a lot of bike riders -- how they manage to ride their bikes up those hills I don't know.

We t r u d g e d back up Halloran and the steps to STM and Staggered home. .. Final walk stats: 8.6 kms - up hill and down dale.


Next stop - Davidson to Roseville Bridge -watch this space!!