Cowan to Mt Kuring-gai

Originally this walk was planned to go from Cowan to Brooklyn, via Taffys Rock. The leader was somewhat nonplussed on arriving at Cowan to find that the trackwork (which he knew about) was resulting in the closure of the Jerusalem Bay Track (which he didn't know about). Appeals to the rail workers came to nought, and some rapid replanning was required. To try and keep a similar distance and difficulty, we decided to go to Mt Kuring-gai along the Great North Walk, with a detour via a couple of unnamed ridges and across the intervening gully.

This turned out to be quite interesting. We found fairly well formed single track loops on both of the unnamed ridges, which ended at excellent lookouts. We used these for morning tea and lunch, away from the busyness of the main Great North Walk. In between we had a solid hour or more of off track to cross the gully in between. Unsurprisingly for the Ku-ring-gai area, it was rather scrubby! On the way, we passed an interesting linear stone arrangement. Aboriginal? I don't know.

We had to up the pace after lunch as we still had 13km to go. The leader was able to offer around gingernut biscuits that were not much more than a year out of date at Naa Badu Lookout! These were (mostly) gratefully received! The last section up Lyrebird Gully was done in the fading light, and we emerged at the top just after sunset.