Cycling around Terrey Hills

As the temperature yesterday tended to be warmer outside than in, Sue and I headed up to Terry Hills to explore the area by bike. This is an area about 15 mins drive north from our house and it marks a borderline area between the built up area north of Sydney and the bush, which is a national park up to the Hawkesbury River. It also tends to be a 'dead end' so the only traffic is local and the roads are very quiet which makes it good for cycling.

As we headed out from the main centre, the majority of properties seem to have horses on them and it is a popular horse owning and riding area. The land tends to be cheaper here and therefore properties being bigger, with many large bungalow type houses on spacious plots, many with tennis courts as well (and no doubt swimming pools out the back). However, there also seemed to be a lot of properties for sale, which may be a result of the equine flu which affected much of NSW in 2007.

It was a good bike ride, with many quiet English-style lanes and colourful autumnal leaves in the afternoon sunshine, plus a couple of off-road sections to get between some of the lanes. We also passed a wildlife reserve (the 'home of Skippy') which we haven't visited before but is closed for renovation at the moment. We were also starting to wonder why the area was called Terrey Hills, but we came across some big ones on a few of the back lanes towards the end of the ride, which just about did us in!

Manly Dam

Saturday seems to be the day when Sue and I can 'do our own thing' at the weekend, as the girls have more requirements for time and lifts on a Sunday now. This weekend continued the warm sunny weather of the past week, so we decided to walk the other half of Manly Dam, which we had first done soon after moving to our current house.

The tracks into the bush area around the dam reserve are near to the house, so we could walk from home and then followed the footpaths and bike tracks through the bush, down to the main picnic area at the edge of the dam. Most of the paths were deserted apart from a few large groups of cyclists who have to follow a one-way route around the dam.

Being in the bush, the views don't tend to be that great, but there was a good variety of flora (and fortunately no dangerous fauna!). We completed the walk and were back home in just over 3 hours, armed with the thick Saturday paper to read with our feet up.

Rebecca's football team had been allocated the early start on Sunday, so we were out of the house by 7.30 to drive to Mona Vale up the coast, ready for an 8.20 kick-off. We're beginning to establish weekly chats with several others parents at this match, plus this was an entertaining game with Rebecca's team having a resounding 5-1 win over the opposition.

Mother's Day

It was Mother's Day in Australia yesterday although we didn't get to have a 'family day out' like last year due to the various activities that are now a regular part of a Sunday here. Caroline was at work in the Mall during the morning and Rebecca had the usual soccer match which we went along to watch and her team won this week (1-0) with the final kick of the ball.

Laura and Caroline both had school work to do and Rebecca had received her leaflets for delivery to around 300 houses in the local area this week - which is her new job - so she (and Sue) spent some time getting these ready. Sue and I went for a quick walk and the girls prepared a 3-course meal for the evening (one course each) which went very well and was delicious!

Start of the week

As we've been getting blue skies for the past week, we decided to have an early start this morning to kickstart the day so Sue and I got up at 6am and drove down to Curl Curl for a walk/run along the beach. By the time we got there the sun was just starting to appear behind the clouds out to sea on the horizon and it was a beautiful morning, although still quite cool at that time of day.

The cliff boardwalk and beach was busy with joggers all out at this time (and probably regulars) plus there were quite a few surfers already out in the waves. It was a hard slog on the beach as the harder sand near the water was on a slope this morning and the softer sand was tough going, but we felt better for it afterwards - eventually - and may do it again (but probably not on a regular basis!).

Over the weekend we had also taken our bikes out again and explored the nearby Lane Cove Park, which is a bushland river valley with a tarmac road running for several kilometres up the park. It was very quiet with few cars around and a good ride, although not many views as it was mostly in the bush.

We also had a late night on Saturday as we went to pick Caroline and a friend up from the Foo Fighters concert at the Olympic Park - which needless to say they both thoroughly enjoyed and made it right to the front by the stage - and this was followed by an early start on Sunday for another soccer match for Rebecca, which was a close game but her team lost 2-1.