Category: Nature

The Burning Mountain

January 12, 2016

Today Sue and I visited this:

It’s a burning coal seam about 2.5 hours northwest of Newcastle. I’d learned of it via an ancient episode of Ask The Leyland Brothers and new I had to visit one day. Despite very high temperatures (upper 30s) today was the day!

The area of interest itself is over an hours walk from the (somewhat uninviting) carpark, and the walk is about 25% like the above image, but mostly like this:

It was hot and humid, but the path was mostly uphill and the higher we got the stronger the breezes. We didn’t see any mammals but there were a few birds, lizards and about five billion of these guys:

He looks bigger in that photo than he was, which was about an inch long. Sue was mindful of snakes, but if they were around they were hiding in the shade 🙂

Eventually we reached the top, which looked like this:

The smell of sulphur was strong, but we didn’t see much steam coming out of the ground. The signs said that 30 meters underground the temperature was 1700C, but if it was notably warmer at the summit it wasn’t easy to tell due to how hot it was anyway.

Ducking around the fence into the sulfurous ground made us a bit uncomfortable. There was something unusual about the place, and we quickly shuffled away.

Of course it took us another hour or so to walk back to the car. It was getting even warmer now, and the car air conditioning was welcome indeed.

On the drive back we stopped at two lakes. The first, Lake Glenbawn was ringed by a very locked fence and this sign hung on the gate:

The next, Lake Lidell had an incredibly creepy caravan park full of ancient, mostly locked up caravans that look like they’d been there since the 1970s. We drove around, disturbed by the creepiness of the place, and I doubt you could have paid us to exit the car!

There’s a story waiting to be told about that place!

Anyway Burning Mountain was fun and it was a good day trip ‘out west’. If you’re ever here, it’s worth the trip. On a cooler day 🙂

The Great North Walk

January 9, 2016

I caught a bus yesterday to Speers Point, a town on the shores of Lake Maquarie.

I was there since I wanted to do the portion of The Great North Walk that connected the lake to Newcastle. The entire walk runs all the way to (or from) Sydney but I’d never done any of it.

The lake was beautiful and I briefly considered abandoning my plan and walking to Belmont. However I was looking forward to a bush walk and followed the markers guiding hikers along the trail:

After a bit of walking through the suburbs, I reached the bush and this sign:

I was a little surprised at this point since I thought Newcastle was only 8 km away and Charlestown 3. Apparently this leg of the walk was a bit longer than I expected. I didn’t know too much about the route except that until Charlestown almost all of it would be in the bush. Here’s the path vanishing into the trees:

The first half hour or so was fun, if a little hot. The bush was thin, the path wide and dry, and the songs of birds were everywhere. I watched carefully for snakes but only saw lizards. I’m sure snakes had their eyes on me though from hideaways like this one:

The sun rose higher and it got hotter. Getting close to an hour into the bush the path had started breaking up and patches of mud and even puddles (remnants of the recent storms) were to be seen.

As I pushed on through spiderwebs and knee-high grasses it became increasingly humid and wet. It was clear that the path – now much smaller and slightly overgrown – had been a creek only days prior. My shoes sunk into mud.

The puddles became larger; the mud deeper. Along with the birdsong I started hearing frogs. I was drenched in sweat; my bottle of water long since empty. I’d been walking for almost 2 hours. Where was I?

Around this time I saw the only other person I would see on the track, an elderly lady heading from Dudley to Toronto (a considerable distance). We had a chat for a while and she was very afraid of snakes, telling me this section of the track was known for them. I told her I’d seen none and that puddles and mud would be her biggest problem. She told me Charlestown was only 20 minutes away. Hallelujah!

That’s how the track went under the freeway. The tunnel was long and very dark, and I can only imagine what sort of evil creatures dwelled at to bottom of the sickly creek that passed through the tunnel as well. This was only 10 minutes or so from Charlestown, but even at the very end the trail had surprises, including sharp rises and drops under a near-rainforest canopy.

I shuffled along at double my usual speed, eager to put this hell behind me.

When Charlestown Square finally loomed into sight I was overcome with joy. Although only a little over two hours it had been one of the most unpleasant bush walks I’d ever done and although I’m glad I did it I know I’ll never tread those paths again!

I had initially planned to walk the entire (15 km?!) trail to Newcastle. That plan was quickly abandoned, although as fate would have it I ended up walking back another way anyway.

It was a very tiring day. I think I need a vacation 😉

Anzac Day

January 8, 2016

Dad and I went to see the Anzac Walk, a new elevated platform opened this past year to commemorate 100 years since WW1.

As you can see the weather was lovely, and the views of the city and ocean from the high walkway were wonderful. Highly recommended if you’re in Newcastle.

We continued down to Newcastle beach, which was still closed due to heavy seas. This didn’t dissuade the sun bathers though.

Here’s a shot of the same beach from 1912:

That shot is from one of the exhibits in Newcastle Museum, which we visited after lunch. Although this had been opened for several years, I’d never been before and was surprised how good it is.

In addition to detailed exhibits on Newcastle history, the museum also contained a superb section of hands-on physics experiments demonstrating a wide range of phenomena including magnetism, optics, mechanics and more specialized things such as turbulence or eddy currents! Here’s dad exploiting a long lever arm to lift a car:

By mid afternoon it had gotten quite hot, and despite the liberal application of sunblock I’m sure I’ve burned myself a little.

Dad went home and I continued on to explore a wealth of antique and bric-a-brac shops around Hamilton. One thing led to another and a couple of hours had passed. I purchased nothing, but may have got this chess computer had shipping it home not been a pain:

I’m ruined by the sun now, and very tired. I can barely stay awake watching this ‘Hitler movie’ dad’s just put in the DVD player 🙂

Robot Claw