Robbo – The Blog of Andrew Robertson 
I went for a lovely paddle this morning from Clontarf (in Middle Harbour) to the Bachino Bar cafe on the beach at Clifton Gardens. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the water is getting noticeably warmer. The route took me out of the Middle Harbour heads which face the main harbour heads. Going around this headland gets quite a decent swell from the ocean. It was the first time I have usd the kayak in any swell (other than boat wakes).
I have been listening the Steve Jobs biography at the moment on my iPhone. It is a facinating book and allowed me to completely tune out to the physical work of the paddle and I could just enjoy the day.
The paddle to the cafe took about an hour. I was able to sit at the cafe for 15 minutes or so and enjoy a coffee in the sun. Then I started the paddle back.
On the way back, a massive tanker came into the harbour, accompanied by a couple of tug boats. I paddled out to as close as I dared to watch the massive hunk of steel cruise past. When you are that small in the water looking up at that wall of steel, you certainly get a true sense of scale.
The trip back took just over an our. All up it ended up being about 10.5 km and very enjoyable. I am not too tired as a result.
Last night I finally went climbing again. Darren from work, who is a long time climber and I headed down to ClimbFit in St Leonards. Darren hasn’t climbed for a year or so because he has a couple of young kids that have been taking up all his time. Sean and Indigo also showed up a bit later but we really didn’t get much time to catch up.
The climbing was great. I haven’t done it for a couple of years, so I was expecting to be crap. However I was pleasantly surprised about how long I could last on the wall.
Darren has a great method of indoor climbing, where you must do 10 climbs in the night. It doesn’t matter how simple the last couple of climbs are, you must still do 10 climbs. We managed this last night which felt good.
The plan is to start climbing at Lindfield Rocks when the sun starts setting later. It will be great to get on real rock again because it has been about 12 years since I have done that.
Today was my chance to take the new sea kayak out for a long paddle. At 7am I headed down to Pittwater and emparked on a 16km paddle. Pittwater was amazing today, there was no wind and the water was like glass. Plus there was hardly any boats out at that time of the day, so there was little swell.
The paddle took me 2.5 hours all up and at the end I felt like I could still keep going. So that is a very good sign for if I want to so some longer trips and some point.
One thing I did discover was that The Basin, which is a popular camping spot on Pittwater does not look like a very appealing sort of place to camp.
This is my first blog post using the WordPress Android App. Seems to work ok.
Finally I did it. I bought a sea kayak. For the last 10 years I have been paddling my Dagger Transition (white water boat) on flat water. It has been killing me. It is like paddling a bath tub. The tail drags and it has no keel what so ever.
So this weekend, while down at Binalong, I decided it was time to invest in a boat. Helped along with a surprisingly bigger pay cheque than expected, I went to a Kayak shop in Canberra and went shopping. Fortunately they had a 30-40% off sale so it was fate.
I ended up getting a Riot Edge 14.5 plastic Kayak. It is so nice. It ended up being the only one I could really fit in, but it had all the features I wanted and it is nice and light.
I just rode (and walked a bit) to the top of Kileys Hill, behind our house at Binalong. It is a killer ascent.
I have done the ride a few times before from the south side, but not for many years. Today I decided to do it from the North side, which involved a lot more riding across (rough) sheep and cow paddocks.
Heading up the hill I got to the point where I was riding along a fence line and had to set myself mini goals of the numbers of fence posts I had to go before resting.
The ride down the hill was short but fun. I did realize half way down that breaks don’t work so well on wet grass. With all the hidden rock in the grass this did become a little alarming at times.
There was plenty of wildlife on the way. I got chased by cows and a bull. Was visited by a couple of horses. On the way down the hill I ended up chasing a lot of sheep and a couple of kangaroos.
Distance: 6.9km
Time: 1:04:28
When we went to Fiji, I left the car at the office. Since Kath is unwell, I decided I would ride into Chatswood to pick up the car. Rather than doing the direct route via Warringah Road (and the step Roseville Bridge road), I decided to make it a bit more interesting.
The route went via the Cascade Track (Garrigal NP) and up into St.Ives. The hill from the base of the Cascades into St.Ives is pretty killer and involved a fair amount of walking.
The route was about 12km in total and a nice way to start the day (and see how fit I am). I think next time I can will extend it by some more distance or even do the return trip.
On Friday night we got back from the most fantastic holiday. We had a week on Malolo Island in Fiji.
The resort (Malolo Island Resort) was a very friendly place and the majority of the staff were from the local village. They were really good with kids and almost all of the staff knew James’ name within a couple of days being there (even without him participating in the Kids Club).
The snorkeling on the island was fantastic. We could snorkel right of the beach outside our buro. We also did a number of boat trips out to some of the other reefs. The fish were plentiful and very friendly. I had plenty of opportunity to test out the GoPro under water. At one point I was going down to the bottom of the reef to retrieve the camera (which I had placed on the sand) and just as I was grabbing it, a black and white sea snake swam towards me. It was spectacular and (apparently) very poisonous. Unfortunately the camera ran out of batteries before I could get a shot of it.
The video below pretty much sums up the entire holiday. We will definitely (one day) go back.
My walk today did not start well. Just outside our house there was a nesting magpie that decided that my ear was posing a threat to its nest and decided to have a goat it. With a hard crack, next thing I knew was I had blood dibbling down my face.
However this did not deter me and I continued on. Today I decided to finish a walk I started the other day. Half way down the Cascades track (our regular walking track) there is a small track that follows a small creek up into the bush. Having looked (briefly) at the map, I could see that the the track would eventually end up in the backstreets of Belrose and looked like it would be fairly straight forward.
Forest Creek Track
As I was walking down the Cascades track a couple of hikers mentioned to me that the Forest Creek track was pretty overgrown the last time they walked down it. Again, not deterred I continued on. For most of the way, the track was pretty good, however in the last kilometer, as the track rises up towards Belrose and then completely disappeared. Using the creek as my guide, I bush based my way up to the backs of some houses in Belrose and found a path back onto a road.
It was a nice walk, despite a bleeding ear and lots of scratches on the arms and legs.
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- Forest Creek Track
I woke up to a pretty miserable day. It had been raining pretty much all night, but after my first coffee of the day I decided I needed to get out and do something regardless. So I decided that I should do just a short 1 hour walk.
About 15 minutes drive away from where we live is the Ku-Ring-Gai National Park and there are heaps of fire trails in the area. I have down a lot of mountain biking in the area. One of the trails I have ridden on the past is a pretty easy fire trail called Duckholes Trail. It is a pretty gently uphill that runs from the road to West Head up to the base of Terry Hills.
Duckholes Track
The track is only about 2.7km one way and it was really wet after all the rain. It was a nice walk in the drizzle and a great way to start the day (instead of drinking more cups of coffee).
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- Duckholes Track
After last weekend’s paddle, I spent the first part of this week with a sore tendon in my wrist, so this weekend was going to be all about walking.
Having accomplished a 12.5 km walk in Austria, we decided that James would be ready for a longer Sydney walk. For ages I have wanted to do the full work from Davidson (starting at the top of the Cascades Walk) and ending in Davidson Park (under the Roseville Bridge).
Davidson to Roseville Bridge
The walk is about 10 km, but even though it is pretty much all downhill and along the edge of the upper Middle Harbor (which looks more like a creek), it is pretty windy. So with a seven year old it is pretty slow going.
Unfortunately James scraped his knew about 3km into the walk, so the final 7km was spent coaxing him along and dealing with a lot of whingeing. Mental note: take more food and lollies when walking with James.
Whinging seven year olds aside, the walking is very nice. It was a pretty warm morning and in the valley there is not a lot of air flow, so I would be wanting to do this walk in the heart of summer.
Robbo - The Blog of Andrew Robertson 