After some internet research the night before I decided to head north of Sydney to a peninsula just south of the Central Coast, to have a look at the Bouddi National Park. I had found a walk that takes in forest and sea views and beaches. The plan was to park at Little Beach parking hem walk to Killcare surf club then take a more direct route back.
I left Sydney at abut 8:30 and was parked up at 10:00. The journey was mainly motorway, which gave me a chance to think about how they build roads. There is a lot of rock removal, at times the road was carved through tens of metres of rock, on some sections they had left a strip in the middle to serve as a central reservation. The most spectacular points were where there was a turn off in a cut through it was like the canyon I has in had another canyon going away to the left. I have come to the conclusion that Australia is just a big rock with a thin layer of dry sandy soil topped off with trees.
The path started to descend from the car park and then left the Little beach path and headed very steeply up hill in a tight path through the forest, this was to be the theme of the day. At the top of the hill I was on a wide track with low bushes. I spied the odd bird but most were the familiar ones. After a kilometer the path headed steadily down hill for quite a while, then as I could hear the sea it started to descend very steeply till it reached the bottom of the valley. A small cover where the sea smashed against large boulders was revealed. I sat a watched the waves for a while before tackling the up on the other side of the valley.
In total I think I counted 5 down then up sections all equally as long. One of the highlights was Maitland bay, where the coastal path is on the beach rather than high up on the cliff, the final section of path is a very well made steep set of steps made of brick shaped lumps of rock. My timing wasn’t perfect as the tide was in, and the waves were reaching the bottom of the rocks for a couple of sections. I had passed a couple on the steps so I assumed that had made it past the rocks. I had to get my timing right, I read somewhere that every seventh wave is a big one so I waited for a big one then made my way in a few legs across the beach, and managed it without getting wet feet. My perfect timing inspired a couple who had been waiting the other side to give it ago. At the end of the beach the path headed up to the top of the cliff again.
Before tackling the steep up, I stopped off at the end of the beach and watched while a couple flew their DJI drone. The path was again, like the day before, really well marked and when there was a sheer drop railing and wooden walkways made the going safe. At the top one cliff there was a large area of rock some of it washed away to reveal almost square sections, like terracotta tiles. The people flying the drone on the beach turned up and flew it from the top of the cliff from a look out I was sitting at. We chatted and he showed me the features which really make getting great footage easy. For example you can ask it to circle about and keep the camera on you, or fly up high, or fly away then come back, all you have to chose is how high or haw far then press a button and it does it all autonomously.
Eventually the the path duped me on to the final beach, an I realised that I would have to take a more direct route back to the car. Google said it was about an hour and a half back to the car via the road, not ideal but I could not face the cliff path again I had already walked 7 miles. The route took me through a housing estate with little traffic for a while, where I spotted quite a few birds. It was getting a bit hot so I had to go easy on the water I had, but at a small information shack by the road side a volunteer let me use the staff kitchen to fill up my bottle. The walk back to the car was about an hour and a half, some sections quite steep but not as bad at the coastal path. In all I had walked 11 miles.
The drive back was quite busy and I could see smoke from bush fire turning the sun red. I stopped off at the local supermarket for supplies and a tuna steak and chips from the amazing fishmongers, so I could get an early night after a weekend exertion.