Garigal National Park

This park is in the northern suburbs of Sydney. It has two main sections separated by the Forest Way in Belrose.

We were in the southern section ( formerly known as the Davidson State Recreation Area.) This section mainly covers the areas directly around the waterways - all the creeks feed into Middle Harbour.

We met at Stone Parade, Davidson and set off down the fire trail, which is reasonably steep in places. The surrounding bush is thick and very beautiful. Flowering wattles and boronias again dominated.

We reached the Cascades for our morning tea stop. Di’s photo was taken just as we approached them. We saw ducks in the deeper parts of the creek - apparently this used to be a very popular swimming hole for the local children, but is now not considered to be suitable owing to pollution.

Although our plan was to walk towards Davidson Park, it was suggested that perhaps we could do a “reccy” in the opposite direction. Following old ( perhaps out of date?) maps provided by the Park office, we set off on the fire trail. It would appear that a turn-off track was missed and we followed the Quarry Track - which, strangely enough!, took us to the quarry ( the far side of which is on Mona Vale Road). We turned around and walked back down to the Cascades for our lunch.

During our stay there, a group of walkers had a brief stop for nourishment. One of our group spoke with them. She discovered that they were training for the up- coming Oxfam Charity Walk. They had already covered a long distance in the morning and still planned a long afternoon section.

We completed our walk by returning on the fire trail to the cars .

Although we had not achieved what we set out to do, a very pleasant day was spent in the beautiful winter sunshine, with good friends, and in magnificent surroundings.

Historical note: About halfway between the Cascades and Davidson Park ( Roseville Bridge) is an area named Bungaroo, This was the camp site of Governor Arthur Phillip and his party on the first European contact with this area in April 1788. The explorers walked overland from Manly to Middle Harbour Creek. From there they walked to the west as far as Turramurra and then retraced their steps to Middle Harbour Creek.