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"Where is he?" — five bushwalkers are looking out for Peter

Royal National Park. "RNP 2002 Revival Hike [...]" — such began our Monthly Report August 2005. Just over a year later we can add another episode to this oldie but goodie. This time, however, in a different composition: The two of us are accompanied by Claudia's colleague Cara and her partner Bruce. Add to this, though only for the first of two hiking days, Christina who used to work with Peter and her husband Samuel, both immigrants from Singapore, and we have our group of 6 hikers. In our 2005 report of this hike, we said that "only few people" walk this track. This year, however, we choose a long week-end for this escape and hence we encounter plenty of day trippers. That doesn't reduce our spirits. At night we stay again at the most beautiful campground (location kept secret) of the whole of Australia, and again this is where we have nature to ourselves. No whale shows up like last year — where is the complaints department? Nevertheless, a completely stunned Claudia sighs "Such a trip should be done much more often than once a year".

"Peter is over there!" Claudia and Siegfried have found him (panorama photo)

Quiz: Whose knees are these?

Elke and Siegfried, continued. After we had left Elke and Siegfried to their own devices after the September week-end in Hervey Bay, they had toured from Brisbane to Cairns through Queensland. They were so relaxed that after three days, they had not yet reached the waypoint that we had suggested to them for the first day. Reason enough for Claudia to push them a little, so that they wouldn't have to skip the highlights of the trip further north later. Elke and Siegfried do what they are told, and return back home to Sydney three weeks later, full of impressions. In Sydney, they spend most of their time bushwalking in the surroundings of our suburb Turramurra — after all those previous visits to Sydney, they know all the main attractions anyway. Maybe their relaxedness in Turramurra is also a tribute to the previous trip when they spent each night at a different location.

In any case, only few of the planned activities for these last days are getting realised. A Saturday in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, only a couple of kilometres north from home, deserves some attention. We start out with admiring the views over Palm Beach and Broken Bay from the West Head lookout point. Then we follow a trail down to the remote Flint and Steel Beach that Claudia and Peter know well from various kayaking trips. Thickly decorated sandwiches, swimming and dozing in the sun are features of this last day of Elke and Siegfried with us. The next day they board the plane for Germany. They will surely visit us again in 2007.

Sorry, Armin, you have slipped out

Royal National Park, continued. At the beginning of this month, Claudia had sworn that this trip should be done more than once a year (see above), so beautiful it is. That it takes only three weeks until a revisit, however, was not originally on the agenda.

How come? Well, Elke and Siegfried had barely left Sydney when Claudia's sister Petra and Armin arrived. They had spent a fortnight in Western Australia and have come to Sydney to round up their holidays. Sadly, there is only one single week-end during their visit. Since our enthusiasm for the Coastal Walk is still so alive, you can guess what we suggest to be doing. Such said such done: This time, we take the car instead of the train and ferry, and instead of the full trip we only do the first couple of kilometers into Wattamolla Beach before we back track after the lunch break. The day turns out to be extremely windy, the seas rough, some of the beaches along the way are almost impassable due to the strong surf. This alone gives the track a completely different feel to earlier this month.

Me up here, you down there

Kite Flying. Last not least, to prove that the repair works on our kite were worth the effort (see September 2006), you get to see this photo. Bleu-blanc-rouge can fly indeed!