reptiles
weekend walks: lake parramatta reserve
After what seemed like an extraordinarily long week, the weekend was finally here. This week’s walk was just a relatively short one compared to last week.
Lake Parramatta is about 20 minutes west of Sydney. The Lake Circuit is about 4½ km and took us about 2 hours – there were two easier, shorter walks but we opted for this one to break in our new hiking boots 🙂 It wasn’t a hard walk, it was just that we wandered off track occasionally for photo opportunities or just for the mere exploration factor.
We were graced with the presence of plenty of birds, insects and reptiles, fortunately none of the reptiles were snakes. And we saw mushrooms – lots and lots of mushrooms: from brown ones to yellow ones to bright fluoro orange ones.
This was the first of our weekend walks where we had to cross creeks or streams – really putting the new shoes to the test!
Although immersed in nature on this walk, the sounds of humankind is not far off. Competing with the trees rustling and birds squawking are the loud rumbles of planes overhead or the engines of cars passing on the main road nearby. Sadly, the sound of nature does get drowned out often. There is a spell of silence about half way in the walk where the tracks goes a little further from the main roads which made the walk much more pleasant!
Despite our ears not really feeling like we had escaped the city, our eyes were fortunate enough to enjoy the view of our surrounds.
Wishing everyone a happy Sunday!
Hope you have a great week ahead 🙂Â
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weekend walks: manly dam
This weekend’s walk comes with more than just photos but also a story:
Our tally for the day was one red-bellied black snake, one brown snake and one goanna. A record considering we have seen NONE before in the wild. The two snakes is on the list for Australia’s deadliest snakes so you can imagine our reaction when we came across two in the span of about 20 minutes!
We panicked and our adrenaline kicked in – for those few seconds, we couldn’t think and pretty much froze. Kind of wish now that we had thought to take a photo. The red-bellied snake just slithered right across our path – possibly sun-baking until interrupted by the vibration of us approaching. As we watched it exit, it seemed to be moving in slow motion, with its bright red belly pressed against the ground. On the other hand, the brown snake seemed petrified of us when we crunched innocently through some dried leaves as we approached a billabong. The brown snake took off alongside a log and honestly, to witness its speed as it propelled its body was sensational. More sensational that it was heading AWAY from us. We had never seen anything like it other than on TV.
The goanna also had us stopped in our tracks. He paused on the path for about 2-3 minutes, long enough for us to take a photo from a distance, before scurrying off into the bushes!
What a surreal day! And as you would have it, we had forgotten to pack our first-aid kit. So there we were, hoping we could get to the end of the walk without any snake attacks!
Hope you enjoy the photos from this weekend’s walk.
Manly Dam circuit walk is about 7.3 km which took us about 3 hours as the terrain varies quite significantly. Manly is approximately 17 km north of Sydney. There are plenty of picnic areas, areas for swimming, bike and walking tracks.Â
wise monkeys abroad 