Waterfall - Heathcote

Our walk today ( in beautiful weather) took us to the Royal National Park.

The Park is very big - 15080 hectares, and it is the oldest established national park in Australia, and in fact, the second in the world ( Yellowstone Park in USA was the first.)

The Park is 32km south of Sydney and is bordered by the ocean in the east and the south coast rail line on the west. The northern boundary is Port Hacking and the Park stretches south to Otford.

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There are over 150 kms of walking tracks within the Park. We chose the Uloola and Karloo tracks, starting from Waterfall station. The walking, in the main, was quite easy. The many wattle trees along the fire trail sections were in full bloom. Our lunch spot was at the top of the Uloola Falls and then quite shortly after our break, we could see the city and Bondi Junction skylines. Our path then took us down to the Karloo Ponds. (Denise’s photo shows this beautiful spot.) We crossed without mishap, and on the upward stretch were aware of many birds - able to be heard, but not to be seen, or positively identified. The remainder of the walk was along the Goondera Ridge which led us to Heathcote Station.

Unusually, we met up with some fellow visitors to the Park. We hope that the young American enjoyed his two day walk - this entailed one night’s camping out, for which he was very well prepared. The youngsters playing at the Karloo Ponds ( being supervised by their Mums) were taking advantage of the lovely weather in their school holidays. We also sighted other walkers.

The return trip to the city by train was very pleasant and rounded out a great day.