where was I?

...I think I had just entered the Garrigal National Park near the Roseville Bridge. The first part of the walk was overcast and a little damp underfoot and pleasant enough. I suppose familiarity does breed some contempt as the track is lovely, but I have walked and run the route plenty of times and I didn't spot much I've not seen before, just the usual sparking harbour, big impressive plants and so on. First cool spot was a couple of yellow tailed black cockatoo. One flew across the path in front of me, landed in a tree and started chomping through some vegetation. Sodding great thing it was too. I spent a while watching it and then headed on.

Out and about on my lonesome for a couple of hours my mind was wandering. I was going through in my mind how a conversation between me and a Catholic School admissions person might go. I was mainly - surprise, surprise - going through religion and science. Do you teach creationism and intelligent design, do you teach religion as a faith and not fact, and do you present other religions, albeit (and I'll allow) with a Catholic slant? I was guessing most of the answers...ah well, we'll cross that bridge if we get to it.

At one point I remember spotting a snake-like bit of vegetation in my path and starting to muse on the likelihood of seeing a snake, and of seeing a dangerous snake. Unlikely and very unlikely, whereas in England extremely unlikely and pretty much impossible. Didn't think much more of it and went back to my Catholic-baiting day-dream. So, do you teach that Jesus is a prophet in Islam, not the son of God, and the Jews reckon he was just a carpenter or a fisherman or a very naughty boy.

The sun had come out and I was sweating my arse off, especially as I did a couple of the big climbs. Nice to see that across one particulrly smooth, steep boulder a knotted rope has been laid. About time too...it is the sketchiest part of the trail. No real footholds, just friction. Dodgy. The final big climb is the steep steps up from the Harbour to the back of Seaforth Oval, a trail called Timber Getters. It really is a bastard of a climb, one I have yet to run completely and even at a walk it is a bastard. On Sunday I took a rest about half way up, courtesy of the fella whose picture tops three entrie back...

On one of the steps, in the sun, I saw a snake, probably about three feet long, maybe a bit more. Hey, my blog, so it was a fucking E-normous snake! The snake was brown, I took a couple of pictures so later I was able to positively ID it as a Brown Snake. What a great name. Anyway, the snake, of an incredibly dangerous, especially venomous and particularly aggressive breed slithered off displaying no hint of its potential...er...deadliness. Which was nice, what with the weather being a bit on and off, hence no people about and me being on my lonesome.

From the top of Timber Getters it is a short walk to the road and from there on it is road all the way. The roads start up on a ridgeline and I stopped several times to take several, as it turned out unimpressive, pictures of the clouds. Nice peach and pink colours, fluffy and streaky bits as I looked out owards the Harbour headlands. Very pretty. It was the loud rumbling noise that caused me to look back over my shoulder to where I had come from and saw a lot - A LOT - of very dark - VERY DARK - clouds. I picked up the pace, and was a few metres on to Spit Bridge when the heavens opened and I turned back to shelter under the bridge.

The sky then went mental. The rain stopped and the sunset that followed was among the best I've ever seen. You can take my word for it or pop over to my flickr site for some pics. I do not have enough superlatives here. And Grand Designs is about to start.