Coalcliff-Stanwell Park Beach-Otford, Tuesday 1st October You might notice that the heading of this trip report is not the same as what was originally planned. That’s because a track closure required a change of destination. And the heading pic doesn’t exactly look like a beach. Read on….
Helensburgh, Stanwell Tops, Kellys falls to Stanwell Park. Initially the weather didn’t look too promising, with possible rain forecast, but as it turned out, the day turned out to be OK with no rain although cloudy all day. The rain had gone north to the Hunter Region and left us alone. Most of…
Helensburgh to Stanwell Park Beach 10/3/2024 A rather early start was required by me as locally buses were replacing trains as far as Gordon Station, from which I got an all stations train to Central. Still, I was up early enough to cacth the sunruise. At Central, eight people caught up with me there, with Sean getting on later at Sutherland. Shibo just…
It’s midday and the group met up at Cronulla Wharf. A casual easy walk like this allows for a later start where other plans can be made in the morning or at night. The coastal track starts at Bundeena which is 20 minutes away from Cronulla on a ferry, running once every hour. Some T4…
Otford to Burning Palms Beach/Figure 8 Pool, then Helensburgh, Sunday 29/10/23. This day was chosen because it supplied a combination of good swimming weather, and a very low tide in the mid afternoon. This would make a trip to Figure 8 Pool fairly safe. There was however a moderate 1.7 metre sea swell forecast, which meant that we would still have to be careful there. With people…
Royal National Park: Uloola Falls and Karloo Pool tracks, Sunday 15/10/2023. The walk started on a nice day with everyone meeting me at Central Station for the 45 minute train trip to Loftus. As mentioned in the walk description, the plan was to take a tram from here to the Royal National Park entrance to save a 45 minute walk along Rawson Road (which is strictly speaking a dirt fire trail). The prior…
This was a repeat trip of the one I did on Thursday, since there was high demand for it. Unfortunately however, out of the nineteen people that had originally signed up, only nine actually showed up on the day! Ten people either pulled out last minute or failed to show up. I had…
This was my first time leading a trip! 14 people met at the meeting point in Central Station, unfortunately with two no shows. I assume this is expected for a trip of this size and considered it lucky that there were only two. Two people brought guests as well, one without notice, but luckily I had already printed out the guest waiver so it was alright. But for…
Helensburgh to Stanwell Park Beach Sunday 26th February 2023. The recent run of very warm weather limited where we could go in this walk, with areas away from the coast predicted to be 30 degrees C (and even 26 C in Katoomba). This walk, with its cool tunnels and largely shady tracks (except for the beach) provided a good choice on a hot day, as the predicted temperature on the coast was 27 degrees C. So many…
Stanwell Park Beach Helensburgh to Stanwell Park Beach SATURDAY 26/11/2022. Another nice day picked for this trip, with a warm sunny day but not too hot. We caught the 9.33am train from Central, this time from the open air platform 22 due to trackwork, and thus spared the incessant bombardment of noise from ads from the big screens at the normal underground platforms; a good omen for the day. And it…
Helensburgh to Burning Palms & Figure 8 Pool and then Otford. With the earlier weather forecast looking like a fine day, it changed just 24 hours prior to being “partly cloudy with 40% chance of showers”. The following day’s forecast had changed from showers to sunny. That’s the…
Royal National Park: Uloola Falls and Karloo Pool tracks, 28/8/2022 Because of trackwork on the Illawarra Line, the origial plan had to be reversed. Instead of starting at Loftus, we started at Heathcote and ended at Loftus. This was because trackwork would mean a 20 minute wait at Sutherland waiting for another train to go just one stop to Loftus, then another 20 minutes doing nothing waiting for the tram. That wasted…
Six of us met up at Central Station on its noisy platform 25 and set off to Helensburgh. Dila got on at Redfern and Catriona at Hurstville. All eight of us on arrival at Helenburgh had a loo break before I gave an overview of our plan before setting of with our first stop being Wilson’s Creek waterfall almost right next to the station. Crossing over…
sheltering at Otford Station. Burning Palms-Otford, Royal National Park. This walk was transferred from the following Sunday (27/3) and checking the rain radar it looks like it was a wise choice, even though we got a few showers on the actual walk. Although 14 signed up we had two drop out sick, one slept in, and one apparent “no show” (who has since explained that he was in Covid isolation), leaving 10 to complete the walk. We met…
Sunday’s trip is a great sucess. The walk was perfect, view was spectecular, friends were made, tyre pressure was lost (it’s my car lol) However we did have some challenges:) First, the Carpooling Apparently we have 13 people signed up for the trip and 13 seats available. That means…
The hike started with all of us meeting at Cronulla Station. Our aim was to take the first ferry from Cronulla to Bundeena which was at 8:30am. I got to Cronulla Station at 7:15am with plenty of spare time in my hand for a nice breakie. When I got off at the station, A familiar voice called my name from behind, It was Sunny(a.k.a Our group’s lucky charm to keep Sunny weather). Then we…
The hike started with all of us meeting at Cronulla Station. Our aim was to take the first ferry from Cronulla to Bundeena which was at 8:30am. I got to Cronulla Station at 7:15am with plenty to spare time in my my hand for a nice breakie. When I got off at the station, A familiar voice called my name from behind and when I looked, It was Sunny(a.k.a Our group’s lucky charm to keep Sunny weather). Then we…
This was another Figure 8 Walk that got afected by the curse which seems so often to visit these trips there. This time it had nothing to do with the sea or safe access; infact it was the easiest access there I had ever done. No, it was an indirect result of the COVID19 Pandemic. Read on…….
Although it was worrying that there were a lot of clouds on the way to Heathcote station, the sky cleared up beautifully at the time we gathered. After waiting for Thomas until 9:30 pm, we headed to the Royal National Park. We started on the Friendly Track, what a friendly national park! Descending on a rocky track along the Heathcote creek, I realised that the water flow was much stronger than the last time I was here, obviously since there was quite a lot of rain during the week. We arrived…
Report by Jessica Having checked the weather report for once, I knew it was going to be a beautiful day for learning how to abseil. I packed my bags the day before after work (saving myself much frantic last-minute scrambling) and made it to Lidcome Station where Iris was kind enough to pick me up for a ride over to Macquarie Falls. The drive…