Day 9: Hunters Hill to Lane Cove National Park

Sydney Harbour saunter: Hunters Hill to Lane Cove Weir. 18 km 6 hours

Started off #warranewanderings Day 9 at the Macquarie Place Obelisk - the intriguing, if humble, start for the Great North Walk. Day 1 of this walk follows the Lane Cove River/Turanburra valley up to its watershed.

A pleasant sunrise ferry trip along western shores of the harbour to Woolwich Wharf at Hunters Hill (once known as 'the French village') and then a suburban street and bushwalk through Hunters Hill to the start of the 'real bush' near Boronia Park.

Hunters Hill has some gorgeous pockets to explore. Highlights for me include Woolwich Baths - a free, serene sharkproof swimming spot, Woolwich Dock a historic dry dock opened in 1901, carved from 85,000 cubic meters of sandstone and the largest in Australia at the time, playing a vital role in repairing ships during both World Wars, and of course Kelly's Bush - site of the world's first green ban.

Unfortunately there are a lack of harbour or riverside tracks along the peninsula, which does mean a few kms of street walking to get to the "real" start of the bush for The Great North Walk.

The GNW is a wonderful, long, well signposted bushwalk - 10 days or more from Sydney to Newcastle (although I must say that the Great North Ocean Walk along every beach and headland between Sydney and Newcastle remains my preferred 'coast lovers' route).

Lovely track (the Lane Cove Valley Walk from Boronia Park) for much of the day. Had to violate my 'no bridges' rule just a smidgen at Kitty's Creek by using a footbridge to avoid disturbing the saltmarshes.

There's an underpass near the Epping Road Bridge that then takes you through the old 'Fairyland' site and down a spectacular descent to the Lane Cove National Park headquarters. Loved this bit of the walk, despite feeling a bit old, as I can vaguely remember when Fairyland was open parkland back when I was a lad.

This is a great walk on a dry day - note that it can get very muddy after rain though. It's a fairly narrow pocket of bushland but it's a lovely track - enough meanderings and ups and downs to keep it interesting, but not enough to make it difficult. Most of it is quite old with real 'bushwalk' feels.

The dry weather meant the Lane Cove River was low enough to cross just below the weir so it's back to the main harbour for me next time!

As an aside, I do hope that Turanburra comes into more popular usage for this wonderful river and valley - much more appropriate and poetic than its current moniker.

But whatever you want to call it, it's yet another wonderful under-explored corner of our glorious harbour...