25-27/04/23 Lane Cove National Park

We spent two days working in a cabin in Lane Cove National Park in Sydney. Lane Cove was an oasis, an illusion of wilderness broken only by the roar of planes on their take-off or final approach to Sydney airport, and the proximity of the Metro station where we could catch a high speed train to the shops. The ever present susseration of unseen traffic was easily discounted as wind in the top branches of the gum trees along the Lane Cove River.

Office guarded by scrub turkeys.

 

A cockatoo gang waited at the cabin door when we got out of bed. Ten of them staked us out every morning, and so intimidating were they that we ate our breakfast inside rather than on the deck.

 

Besides the Cocky Gang, we had regular patrols by a scrub turkey, just checking on the off chance we had been so silly as to leave the screen door open.  

 

With work out of the way we checked out of the cabin and moved all the way down to the bottom of the caravan park, where we set up our tent on green grass overlooking a giant gum tree in Lane Cove National Park and settled into spending time with the Sydney branches of our family.

Best camping lounge room ever.

 

While the cockatoos terrorised inhabitants of the cabins, they were entirely absent down in tent land. Instead bell-birds pinged away down in the forest and a spider, bejeweled with droplets of early morning dew, spun an industrious web in the long grass between our campsite and the National Park.

 

Every evening a fat kookaburra patrolled our camp, returning early in the morning to laugh us awake.  During the night bandicoots dug holes around our tent and possums rummaged under the camp kitchen fridges. The scrub turkeys conducted vigorous patrols, scattering our rubbish far and wide if we were silly enough to wander away from camp without locking it in the car first.

We spent a glorious sunny day ensconced in the camp kitchen, planning our accommodation and bike travels for the next two months. I guess there are worse places to do admin but in hindsight this was not the best use of a glorious sunny day, as when the rain rolled in the next morning we did not have a lot to occupy us as we huddled, for want of a dryer place to be, in the camp kitchen. Fortunately we had children to visit: we spent a few days hanging out, playing board games, visiting cemeteries, and eating delectable food.

That night we snuggled in our cosy sleeping bags as rain drummed insistently on the tent roof and created a puddle obstacle course between us and the ablutions block. 

 

In the morning our soggy pack-up was interrupted by a swamp wallaby who wandered casually through our camp, stopping for a leisurely fungi snack before moseying back into the undergrowth.

By the time the sun came out we were back in another cabin for our two-day work week, waiting to see if the Cocky gang returned in the morning. The beginning of the school term had emptied the caravan park with only the odd grey nomad and a smattering of German tourists scattered across the camp ground.

Delicate pink fungi in the grass.

Camping in the city doesn't get any better than this.