Date 30 August 2015
Track Part of the Great Northern Walk. A well used trail, though difficult in parts, with big step-ups / step downs. A couple of steep climbs. Great views and a profusion of spring wildflowers.
Weather A beautiful warm day.
Access Train to track start at Cowan Station. Train from finish at Brooklyn (Hawkesbury River Station) back to Cowan or Central Station.
Who Peter, Diana, Roger, Daniel
Duration 5 hours, with plenty of stops.
Comments
It’s a very relaxing 50 minute train ride from Central Station to sleepy Cowan, and the track starts from the train platform. We descended gradually then to the shore of Jerusalem Bay and followed this along for a good distance, with wonderful views across the water.
Then came a steep pinch back up to the top of the ridge , but easy going from there through beautiful eucalypts and banksias, hakeas and casuarinas. There was a profusion of flowers under the trees, especially boronia, eriostemon, hibertia, purple flag iris and different types of grevillea. There were myriad yellow pea flowers of several forms, including Bossiaea heterophilia, acacias and later in the walk, hovea and some lambertia, as well as dusky coral pea (Kennedia rubicunda). Ti tree blossom (leptospermum) was everywhere. Several flowers I was unable to identify.
We stopped on a rocky platform, looking down over the Hawkesbury River, for a picnic lunch at midday, before descending to Brooklyn, just for the pleasure of having a meal in the bush, rather than the other option of fish and chips at the end, (though we did drop in at the pub, since we just missed the train and had to wait for an hour.)
It takes all of ten minutes to travel by train back to Cowan, where Roger and Daniel had left their cars, as opposed to a pretty comfortable 5 hour walk going down. Di and I, on the other hand, dozed and read for an hour on the train back to Central Station.
A lovely way to spend a balmy spring day, easily accessible and very diverting flora along the way.
gotmebushed 