For the first walk of 2022, thirteen of us set off in a slight drizzle, walking the Towlers Bay fire trail from West Head Road down to Lovett Bay. A short detour took us to our morning tea stop at the little-known Birnie Lookout. From here there were spectacular views over Scotland Island to Church Point and beyond, the drizzle having amounted to nothing. Also near the lookout was an interesting cave/shelter, complete with picnic table.
Annabel's muffins were popular at morning tea. It was actually a well timed stop as Annabel had walked hard enough to lose the sole of one of her shoes. Fortunately, it was possible to make some running repairs which lasted the rest of the day.
From the lookout we had two options to carry on down to water level: either continue straight down to the bay or backtrack a little and continue via the main track. Karsten opted for the rapid descent (despite a leech warning) while the rest of the group headed back to the main track.
We stopped at a second lookout with more views into Morning Bay and across to Pittwater then walked down to the bay to locate Karsten and enjoy our lunch by the water.
At the Morning Bay wharf lunch stop, we found a dozen or so girls from the nearby Youth Hostel taking a swim after a kayak trip. Tim joined them and it looked most inviting, but no one else had come prepared with swimmers or a towel.
After some more repairs to Annabelle’s shoe, we struck a new route straight uphill behind the Youth Hostel back to the road, Karsten having advised us that he'd come out of his earlier excursion leech free. A small wallaby watched us from a distance.
Back at the cars, Sally came up with a rather magnificent raspberry and poppyseed birthday cake for Ron's special “21-again” birthday. It's hard to believe his real age is any more than that.
And just as we got in the cars to go home, down came the rain.
Truly great organising once again, with thanks and credit to our fearless leader Bob.
Here is a GPS trace of our walk. The 2 hr 41 min noted is our “moving” time. We were actually out for a little over 4.5 hr.
