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Show me your hands

Hike to Red Hands Cave. It's long been on our to-do list: The hiking-tour to the Red Hands Cave near Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains. However, due to bushfires the track had been closed for the last couple of years. Hence, we always had to turn around without having achieved anything. But in August 2005 we finally succeed, and the usual four, Sue and Kevin, Claudia and Peter, meet on a Saturday morning to have a strengthening cuppa in a Glenbrook cafe before shouldering the backpacks and starting to negotiate the track. Compared to the coastal track, which will be on our agenda later the month (see below), it's more a walk than a real hike: nine kilometres following a creek through Eucalypt forests. Sydney sandstone has carved impressive cliffs and overhangs that provided shelter for the local aborigines, the Daruk people. It's under one of these overhangs that we finally find the rock paintings which gave the track its name: Dating back 1,500 to 600 years they show outlines and prints of many hands whose owners had found shelter here.

Better get out of their way — 65,000 people waiting for the start signal

City2Surf 2005. It's groundhog day again: As in every August since we relocated to Sydney, Claudia participates in the City2Surf fun run, 14 kilometres from the CBD to Bondi Beach. This year she barely had any preparation, hence for the first time her result is slower than in the previous year. After 87 minutes and 25 seconds she crosses the finish line as 14,397th runner (cf. Fun runs). During the event you ask yourself what on earth you are doing here: The usual training run is about 7 kilometres long, flat, and takes some 40 minutes. The City2Surf run goes twice the distance, is completely crowded — your major concern is not to trip over the countless legs and elbows —, and the meanest bit is that after 38 minutes (that's when you were about to complete the training run) Heartbreak Hill is waiting for you: 1.7 kilometres uphill running! This year the weather is extraordinarily warm, and Claudia spends a lot of time changing lanes in order to be in the shadows casted by trees and buildings. Behind the finish line, orange and beverage stalls welcome the runners. Yummy, it's probably the bite into a slice of orange that makes the whole event worthwhile. Hardly ever has an orange tasted as good as here at Bondi Beach after 87:25 minutes :-)

Shortcut? Actually, it is the path!

Hiking along the Royal National Park Coastal Track. A "RNP 2002 Revival Hike" is on our schedule (cf. Monthly Report September 2002 and the corresponding Photo Gallery Royal National Park). Winter is the perfect time for hiking in Sydney: During day the temperature is just about right, there are now moskitos and only few people. Only at night, temperatures can get really chilly — especially if you have to carry evrythig in a backpack and therefore do not take the warmest sleeping bag. After we hadn't had success in convincing Erica, Mark, and Silvia to join in, our hiking group consists of the usual four: sue and Kevin, Claudia and Peter. We had done the Overland Track in Tassie and now have to admit that the Coastal Track south of Sydney is a hard one. It follows the coastline, and this means up a cliff, down to the beach, through boggy sand, up the next cliff and so on. Our camground directly on the beach is probably the most beautiful in Australia — and therefore doesn't get detailled out here — and makes the whole effort worthwhile. After we had spotted a snake and an echidna on the first day, the following day comes up with bigger wildlife: Kevin is just brushing his teeth and contemplating over the ocean when he discover huge black fins close to the beach. Directly in the surf zone two massive humpback whales are on their way north. Keep in mind that the whale season in Sydney is over since July. All whales are supposed to be in Queensland's warm waters right now! And we had been standing on dozens of cliffs without ever having spotted whales from there. But right here, 20 metres from the beach, these two are taking it easy swimming north. We are absolutely sure that they won't get there in time but rather wait for their fellows to return south, join them, and take the shortcut home. Anyway, Sue and Kevin really appreciate our trip planning: Weather, tent site, snake, echidna, whales — and all of this reachable by public transport.

View from our balcony: Bushfires in the national park

Some words on bushfires. After the devastating fires around Christmas 2001, if not before, the risk of bushfires is well-known even outside Australia. The local forests consist mainly of Eucalypt. Very often tufts of dry bark are hanging from the trunks and branches like slow matches. Add to this the volatile Eucalypt oil that is hovering over the forests, certain wind and hot weather conditions in summer time, and you get a breeding ground for highly explosive fires.

Rather unknown but is the fact that bushfires are a means of Mother Nature to regulate the botanical cycle, and that many plants actually depend on them. For instance, the seed vessels of many trees will only open at high temperatures. Hence bushfires are part of the nature's cycle, and in many instances it was man who turned their impact from beneficial to devastating: Houses were built ever closer to bushland, so even the smallest fires had to be contained immediately. As a consequence brushwood and scrub could thrive and prosper. Eventually a really strong bushfire found perfect conditions and nutrition and got out of control. Bushfires of incredible power and size, flames of up to hundred metres in height, raging for several days.

The aboriginal people were well aware of the role and importance of bushfires in the natural cycle. They systematically started small and controlled bushfires to diminish the scrubs. A natural fire would not find much nourishment, be relatively cold, and cross a particular band of land in a few minutes without leaving much damage. Trees would lose their leaves. However, already two weeks later fresh green would sprout, seeds open, new plants grow (see our report from December 2002). In the meantime this lesson has also been learnt by the descendant of the white immigrants, and today many areas get burned back before the real summer heat hits in — sometimes after consultation of aborigines. Even around Sydney Harbour you can often smell fires or see smoke on the horizon at this time of the year.