Tuesday 29/09/2020 Wattamolla – The Coast Track – Little Marley Beach – Marley Beach – Marley Head – Wedding Cake Rock – The Waterrun – Bundeena – Jibbon Hill – Marley Head Trail
Royal National Park, NSW
Tharawal country
Participants: Stephen Davies (Photos), Sue Davies (Report)
After reports from friends of waratahs in flower on Curra Moors Track we decided to revisit the area for the day. Our plan was to complete a return loop from Wattamolla, off Sir Bertram Stevens Drive, to Bundeena starting along The Coast Track. Just like yesterday, our walking started after problems getting to our starting point. Heading north into Sutherland a traffic sign indicated Sir Bertram Stevens Drive was closed and detours were in place, no indication of where the road was closed or if it was closed for its entire length. From our reading of the sign we needed to head in via Audley. After driving to the Parks northern entrance station we found we were mistaken, the road being closed at Audley where they were replacing the bridge across the Hacking River.
Max elevation: 81 m
Total climbing: 750 m
Total descent: -750 m
Average speed: 4.27 km/h
Total time: 05:51:57
After backtracking, we finally arrived at Wattamolla to be greeted by tree removal and wood chipping operations in progress in the car park. At least we had a calm, warm day to look forward to once away from the carpark.
Heading north from Wattamolla along The Coast Track we enjoyed a multitude of wildflowers on display, whilst taking our time and many photos to remember the day. We started off with a lightly overcast sky, which provided some nice soft lighting to capture a bit of detail in the sandstone cliffs and formations along the initial section of the route. As the day progressed the cloud cover dissipated to clear blue sky, resulting in a build up of temperature during the afternoon.
Weathered sandstone coastline north of Martin Head
Our route took us via Little Marley Beach, Marley Beach and Marley Head before reaching Wedding Cake Rock where we stopped for lunch. National Parks haven’t mucked around with the fence here, its really high, solid and angled to prevent people climbing onto the unstable Wedding Cake Rock itself. This is a bit of a pity for shorter people especially, as it makes it very difficult to choose a low camera angle for photos but at least it prevents people from a nasty accidental end.
Continuing north past The Waterrun we finished our northerly course on the southern outskirts of Bundeena. Here turning left onto the first road and following it a couple of hundred metres before finding the head of the link track to the west of Jibbon Hill, which heads south-west and joins Marley Head Trail around one kilometre further along. Marley Head Trail is a quick, very open fire-trail walk back south to rejoin The Coast Track at Marley Head.
I can always tell when Sue is getting tied, she doesn’t stop, just wanting to get it done. She was tired this afternoon. So apart from one short sit down break to rehydrate it was a brisk, steady walk all the way back to Wattamolla.
We noted another big failure for the day, our aim having been to see some waratahs, we saw none the whole day! Luckily we had a Plan B, so we stopped and parked at the Curra Moors trailhead carpark on our way home, hoping to sight at least one of these mysterious waratahs. We weren’t a minute out of the car before we saw our first. So after heading a couple of hundred metres along Curra Moors Track we had sighted and photographed half a dozen specimens. We could finally head home satisfied we had achieved the day’s objective.
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