"Frozen" Sandstone
Marley BeachThe owner of our townhouse, Tracey, suggested that we drive the car to the Royal National Park. We decided to go on a cloudy day and wait for the sun to go to the Blue Mountains. We headed out with no navigational problems and arrived in the park, the 2nd oldest in the world after Yellowstone in the US. The facilities show their age. We talked to a very friendly park ranger – is that what they are called here, I wonder – who told us of some possible walks. We couldn’t find the one we wanted, a bad sign, but we chose another along the coast. About 10 minutes in, Duncan wanted to go back to try to find another, but I refused, it seemed a waste of time to retrace our steps. We hiked across two small waterfalls and into the Australian Bush. We were glad we’d brought our hiking boots as the trail was rocky though an easy grade. We saw two skinks, a lizard and supposedly the world’s biggest cockroach. We say this because we’d seen this creature at Wild World the day before. It seems to me the African varieties I’ve seen at University of Toronto biology lab were bigger, but this was certainly the fattest. Actually the big ones aren’t as disgusting to me as the small ones that dart all over.
This was a two hour hike and after ½ half hour we emerged from dense bush to sea views. These got more spectacular as we progressed toward Marley Beach, our destination. We reached a point where the winds were blowing spectacularly and the sandstone at the edge of the sea seem to be a sandstone glacier. The multicoloured rock swirled and frozen in time, reminded us of snow blown into various configurations. We practically crawled to get across the windy outcrop and walked for about 20 minutes more. Periodically we’d see little posts that had been pounded into the rock as markers and these were reassuring as we didn’t have any sort of detailed trail map. The Tasman Sea, my favourite, was wild and menacing as we made our way along the cliffs. We reached a staircase where we had a beautiful view of Marley Beach. We ate our only food, Anzac biscuits we had purchased at the information station, and decided to turn back. It would have been too windy on that beach with sand blowing into our faces. We retraced our steps easily except for that windy outcrop and made it back after two hours. Our first bushwalk - sort of a combination of the scenery we’d had in NZ but in dense dry Australian bush. Great Day!
This was a two hour hike and after ½ half hour we emerged from dense bush to sea views. These got more spectacular as we progressed toward Marley Beach, our destination. We reached a point where the winds were blowing spectacularly and the sandstone at the edge of the sea seem to be a sandstone glacier. The multicoloured rock swirled and frozen in time, reminded us of snow blown into various configurations. We practically crawled to get across the windy outcrop and walked for about 20 minutes more. Periodically we’d see little posts that had been pounded into the rock as markers and these were reassuring as we didn’t have any sort of detailed trail map. The Tasman Sea, my favourite, was wild and menacing as we made our way along the cliffs. We reached a staircase where we had a beautiful view of Marley Beach. We ate our only food, Anzac biscuits we had purchased at the information station, and decided to turn back. It would have been too windy on that beach with sand blowing into our faces. We retraced our steps easily except for that windy outcrop and made it back after two hours. Our first bushwalk - sort of a combination of the scenery we’d had in NZ but in dense dry Australian bush. Great Day!
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