Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Today’s trip was to a national park about one hour north of Sydney. I walked from the Sphinx war memorial to Bobbin Head and back. The first part of the walk was along Cowan Creek. Again a nice, warm day.

I like Sydney’s transport system - they have trains, buses and ferries running everywhere. It’s also very busy, despite the trains being double deckers. There are also a number of interesting people that use it. I saw one woman drinking something of an amber colour from an unusual, clear bottle. Based on the bottle I’d say it was perfume or a liqueur. A Chinese woman got on listening to her phone, which was on loud speaker, holding it to her ear. I am no ear doctor but I think she has a problem with her hearing. I don’t understand Chinese but it sounded like she was listening to a speech from a Chinese Communist Party official. And she was wearing a red cap. Today a couple were rushing to get on the train and the male got on but left his partner on the platform. He didn’t seem particularly concerned. I also saw the laziest person ever waiting for the bus. Instead of waiting at the stop across the road, as the bus does a u turn, she waited at the bus’ last stop across the road. So the bus came, picked her up, did the u turn, and then picked us up. Plus she was on the phone from when she was waiting for the bus and was still going when we got off.

Sydney is full of personalities. On a main street I saw someone reading their newspaper, which was spread flat on the footpath, on their knees. Another one was wearing a white sleeveless wind cheater, white shirt, white runners (with shoelaces undone of course) and acqua coloured sunglasses, topped off by a Chinese dragon tattoo on the arm.

The trip to Sydney, was not very eventful. The train was 45 minutes late at Wangaratta because of a freight train breakdown but NSW railways made up for the Victorians by reducing that to 15 minutes by the time we arrived in Sydney. There was a minor incident at Albury when an older couple came on and were telling someone that they were sitting in their seats. The wife checked the tickets, which were in possession of the husband, and realised they were in the wrong carriage. She shouldn’t have trusted Ray with the tickets.