I can't drive and I have no intention of learning to drive. I'm not interested in cars or the responsibility of owning and operating one. It's just another one of those quirks you'll have to accept about me, like how I'm not interested in settling down, having a relationship last longer than six months or spoiling my blog with ads to make a few pounds a year.
Still, there are times when having a car would be bloody convenient, especially when my plans for day trips end up lying some way off the train and bus networks. Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park and Berowra Valley both looked tempting and conquerable on Google Maps, lying on opposite sides of the rail line and Pacific Highway just to the north-east of Suburbia, but when you show up eagerly at a train station to be greeted by a sign informing you that the Berowra Valley trail begins 10 kilometres in a non-specific direction, you remember the lesson you thought you'd finally learned a long time ago - that Australia is big, and even on a local map nothing is as close as it appears.
But I persevered and managed to get at least an abridged introduction to both national parks, joining the Great North Walk at several intervals within reach of public transport and turning back after a couple of hours before the sun started to set and the 136 bus ceased its limited Sunday service, rather than heroically carrying on and risking spending the night in the open air if I didn't come across a town. If you're under the delusion that I'm some kind of thrill-seeking adventurer and not just someone trying to fill his days with nice visuals to accompany his audiobooks, I don't know what blog you think you've been reading for the last two years.
Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park
Vain, rock-balanced timer photo. I only saw one other human all the time I was here. The humans don't know about this place
That was a solid wall of rock until yours truly showed up and did my thing. That's right ladies, does a thoughtless lack of respect for nature get you going?
Cowan Creek. The grass isn't always greener on the other side
The trail came out here after about an hour. I don't think it's Apple Tree Bay, the sign told me that should be two hours' walk
But that's a nice name, so let's call it that.
Those are definitely trees of some description anyway
Those are definitely trees of some description anyway
I'm normally not interested in beaches either (another way I'm fascinating and odd), but I realised I like ones like this: abandoned, reclusive and unkempt
And with unpleasant, transparent, unidentified dead things
Unfortunately, I couldn't work out where to go next after clambering around on these rocks for a while looking for anything resembling a path, so the adventure ends (or fails to begin) here
Today's irrelevant soundtrack: Richard Adams, Watership Down (BBC radio dramatisation)
Berowra Valley
It took a little longer to leave civilisation behind in Berowra, and the trails were a lot tidier
If I didn't have to be home by teatime, this face-tree would look a lot scarier at night
The vain photo opp rock was sadly overgrown this time
But I got one in at Naa Badu Lookout
This is all one photo, honest.
The sky and ground just changed colour at random intervals like that
Today's irrelevant soundtrack: Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (BBC radio dramatisation)
