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Yesterday I led the bushwalking club's fourth annual marathon walk.
It's becoming quite a fixture on the annual calendar, and a select group of three of us have started (and finished) all four of the 42.2 km events. We're very specific about the 42.2 kilometres. If my GPS machine says we've still a few hundred metres to go, then we find ourselves a few hundred more metres at the end of the road and we do them!
This time eight of us went to Manly. Not the usual 9km stroll from The Spit, nor the 11km ferry ride from Circular Quay, but the long way round. We started in North Turramurra, walking the Darri Track to St Ives, then across into the Garigal National Park, and down alongside Middle Harbour Creek.
After lunch at Davidson Park we went under Roseville Bridge, paused briefly on Flat Rock Beach, made our laborious way around Bantry Bay, sat on the very thin rock sliver that is Natural Bridge, went up and down a few hills, and stopped again for a water refill break at Seaforth Oval. By now the short breaks were becoming more frequent, the blister-prone among us were developing their usual blisters, and those with mutinous tendencies were starting their mutinous mutterings.
Nobody had to be flogged or shot in the end though, and we proudly marched past the Spit, along the beach at Clontarf, and into the streets of Manly - all pretty well before the dark set in. Our precautionary head torches had not been needed for once. We'd done the course in under 13 hours. Our junk food splurges before leaping aboard the Manly ferry were well deserved.
We'll do it all again next year.
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I've been doing the reconnaisance for my next 42km marathon walk, and today I checked out the section from St Ives to Roseville Bridge. It's mainly in the Garigal National Park, along the Harbour to Hawkesbury Trail, and it's all rather pretty.
Along the way I met several of the locals. There was a big goanna, who did his goanna thing, running up a tree.
There was a huge, fabulous diamond python, who ignored me entirely while lazily crossing the track, lowering himself down the bank to the creek, and swimming gracefully across to the other side.
Then a splendid water dragon jumped out of his skin, and me out of mine, when our paths unexpectedly crossed. He too swam across the creek, though rather more quickly than the snake had.
The biggest drama of all though was played out in a street in St Ives. A big strapping Australian Raven was standing his ground against a whole squadron of noisy miners, in defence of the stash of bread crumbs he'd found on the road. The miners took it in turns to strafe and dive bomb him, screaming their noisy threats, and at times co-ordinating their attacks and making him look rather concerned and putting him right off his feeding. But he held his ground, and when I left, he was still winning on points.
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