Easter  Break   24th April 2019

Tuggerah Lake . . . Jetty to The Entrance

Early Morning Lake Walk

Just after dawn, Michael dropped me at the second jetty on Tuggerah Lake.
(He was on his way to Sydney to visit his Mum for the day.)
Out on the jetty snug in from the blue of the Watigan hills
softened with curl and swirls of mist
the lake spreads out its delicate silken cloth
puffs up pink light  and ripples out in pattern of jumping fish.

A constant zigzag of dawn-light runs like a barber shop post
and a singular pelican floats, dives ,floats, siphons-feed
as if like Narcissus it has fallen in love with itself.

and rightly so. This big cumbersome bird at home on the lake.
It’s delicate calm, movement as beautiful as a swan in Swan Lake

Its reflection in symphonic balance is sheer theatre.

The sky slowly turns

from mauve and pink to aquamarine blue

with the waning moon lingering

in the sky and bobbing up and down in the lake.

It reminds me of Rumi’s words:

Thirst drove me down to the water
where I drank the moon’s reflection

and the sun arriving in the east.

A delicate blue crane stands tall in the grasses on the edge.
It cranks up its body and flies off before i can capture a picture
as a walker and his dog get too near.

Crossing the bridge three ibises feed in the muddy bank.
Sorry the spoonbill wasn’t there today
the three ibis have to turn the mud themselves.

Looking down into the lake I watch the shadow of birds
flying out for the day . . .  I think a flock of cormorants and now a noisy flock of lorikeets all chatter. The sea gulls are along the fence of the jetty
and three plovers are noisily warning me not walk to the end of the jetty .

The zigzag of the light in the waves is even more active as the sun rises,
fires the lake alive.

its colours brazen the day.

Maybe it is a surface wind
across the thin skim of water  for me the air is very still

An empty boat drifts  along on the lake escaped from its mooring overnight 

A long snake-like neck of a cormorant dives deep and returns constantly
until it reaches the end of the jetty and clammers up to dry out.

Plovers, seagulls, pelicans and a singing peewee
make the jetty their pondering place
and me with note book in hand ponder too.

Three pelicans join the pondering . (I love this photo nearly as good on the one Elizabeth Keating-Jones too for the cover of my first collection of poetry

A Call to Listen

.–

Out further pelican clusters in their hundreds on the man made sand island

Back in The Entrance and reality, the capriciousness of the merry-go-round circles us, a frivolity at the edge and walkers talk to themselves
as they pass . only at closer range do you notice the bluetooth ear phones
and tiny speaker.

It was a lovely easy paced flattish walk along the lake and into a few pockets of bush and trees . The She-oaks and palms predominant in stands, Here also we enjoy a wonderful bird chorus and the Willy wag tails follows us.

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April 26th 2019  Easter Break

The Coast Walking Track

Wyrrabalong National Park

( Bateau Bay Flora Reserve and Honey Reserve)

Crackneck to Shelly Beach 

Michael and I drive to Crackneck Lookout.  It is early and very few walkers are around. There is a gentle silence in the air which is beauty to me. The sea, its wide expanse  is like a silken slightly ruffled sheet, 

   

Some days it is a wild and woolly ocean .  

Sitting at one of the picnic tables is The Jehovah Witnesses with their array of flyers and ready to chat.  Unfortunately there are three tables and they hd strategically placed themselves at the middle one  so we had to sit with our thermos on a seat only. We were only having a coffee and breakfast before I set out for the bush walk.

Just by the way the seat we chose had a small plaque  with the saying:

Life isn’t measured 

by the number of breaths we take 

but by the moments 

that take our breath away

Treasure every day 

The Coast Walking Track

Wyrrabalong National Park

( Bateau Bay Flora Reserve and Honey Reserve)

I set out. Michael drove down to Shelly Beach to park the car and  planned to meet me half way. It was exciting to check where we both were with our new App called Find a Friend

The bush track. Yes it is a little incongruous to be checking your iPhone when walking in such beauty but it was only once or twice. And it was necessary as I found  a great view and some a spot to sit out on the headland and he could’ve passed by for I was off the track. 

The track is a bush path inland a little from the coast (not like the trig station walk that hugs the ridge with awesome views of the ocean. I roughed it out on a less worn track out and then I understood it is a sheer drop down  so no path is really possible there.  

Anyway the trunks of the eucalypts were wonderful , many with scribbles, many warm red blotchy textured trunks .  the grass trees , banksias and bottle brushes hake and the chorus of birds is a world away from the world and the Whip bird every now and then clears the air and reminds me I am walking in the Australian bush.   

Towards midway I found a track out to a clearing over the rock platform and ocean

and someone had placed two chairs strategically, perfect for sitting and pondering and writing, as Billy Collins tells us 

that is the poets job, to look about checking the clouds and  the day. Someone needs to do it and why not the poet. who can report on the goings on of our planet.

  

There is always a new vista to want to visit like the grass is greener on the other side of the river. Here is this place I look down and wonder about the untouched inaccessible rock pools on the rock platform below. That could be another walk come in from Bateau Bay Beach !!

There had been a fire go through this area in the last 5 years I guess. Some of the trees in this patch re black and I loved taking the photo of the fresh green plant against the blacked truck.

When we met up we continued north down towards the coast . and down some steps to Bateau Bay and Blue Lagoon  . The next half an hour  was beach walking and  than rock plateau walking to Shelly Beach  more sand to clamour across for fish and chips at the Shelly Beach Life Savers Club.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bush Walk:  from Crackneck Lookout south to the Trig Station

 

A Spring Coastal Heathland walk 

Today we took the walk from Crackneck Lookout  to the Trig station.

Last Spring the Flannel Flowers were spectacular so this spring September 2019 we returned to enjoy the same. We were a little early. Recommend you wait till mid October to see acres of wild Flannel Flowers. For us they were mostly baby buds still hiding from the world.

However the spring brought wildflowers,  with lots of new colour to the bush. Spectacular –  purple boronias, powerful pink eriostemons australiensis,  red grevilleas, bright blue dampiera, yellow ispogon, dillwynias, gompholobiums, bossiaeas,  yellow hakea.  Add to this the vibrant Cabbage Tree Palms and the Grass trees and the vistas of the sea through the bush made for a wonderful morning. The trees and variety of barks and colours I will leave till a later ‘Tree’ post.