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Walking Volunteers Map Greater Sydney

By on 1 July, 2019 in Walks

the walking volunteers

Walking Volunteers Map Greater Sydney

The Walking Volunteers (WV) were formed in 2004 when the North Sydney Walking Volunteers and the Hunters Hill Walkers came together to walk and map a continuous walking route around Sydney Harbour and along the coast from Barrenjoey to Port Hacking. You can see most recent maps here.

The group worked with the Department of Planning, councils, community groups and the Sydway Mapping Division to prepare nine brochures for this continuous walking route. Over 400,000 of these were printed and distributed. The brochures were also available as a download from the Sydney Coastal Councils Group web site which received over 30,000 visitors a month including 2,300 from overseas. The Sydney Harbour & Coast maps were also available as a free App (Sydway Walker) and over 270 of these apps were downloaded every month.

Barrenjoey to Parramatta

Maintaining a supply of up-to-date printed maps has proved difficult so the Walking Volunteers decided to adopt a ‘digital’ solution. Since 2014 they have been re-walking their routes, mapping them on GPS, ‘normalising’ them with Google Earth and loading onto GoogleMyMaps to provide walkers with an online, scalable walking map of the Sydney metropolitan area.

The WV maps are now structured to feature the main continuous walking routes (shown in red) focussing on the coast, harbour and river with links to the Great North Walk and the Federation Track. Their most recent project has been the establishment of the Great West Walk from Parramatta to Penrith and Katoomba that links major green spaces like Parramatta Park, Western Sydney Parklands and Wianamatta Regional Park with Blue Mountains National Park and provides one-day walks from station to station on the Western Railway Line.

Parramatta to Penrith

Complementing these main red routes are loops and links, shown in green, spreading into adjacent neighbourhoods for shorter local walks and connections to transport, community nodes and points of interest.

Whenever possible. the routes identified are existing walking tracks or paths built by councils, National Parks and other land managers. In places the maps indicate future projected routes and these are indicated in blue.

The project is ongoing with the aim of providing a metropolitan-wide walking network in line with the government’s concept of a Green Grid linking the city’s green spaces.

Using the Maps

You can zoom in to whatever scale you wish and print off whatever area you are interested in, using the Snipping Tool. The map may also be downloaded onto your smartphone or tablet.

North Head

Download

To download the map just click on this link:-

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WPb6QnNn9Wfgr61qiv6dPVKW2SI&usp=sharing

Personal Computer

Just click on this link and it will open. Use the +/- button in the bottom LH corner of the map to zoom into any scale that suits you. If you want to view the map in Satellite mode, use the slide on the LH panel and slide down to the satellite button in the LH corner of this panel.

The red lines on the map are the main walking routes. The green lines are the local links and loops that are so important to local walkers. The blue lines are future walking routes. There are also layers for:

  • Toilets/water fountains
  • B-line Bus Stops on the Northern Beaches
  • T-way Bus Stops in Western Sydney

Just click the box on these layers when you need them.

Smartphone/Tablet

You can also download the link onto a smartphone or tablet:-

On an Android phone (Google, Samsung, LG, Sony, HPC, Huawei, Xiaomi, Acer and Motorola) click on this link. You may be asked if you want to open the map in Google Maps. If so, enter ”Y”. If it doesn’t ask you, close the direct link and:-.

Click on the Google Maps app .

Tap Menu   Your Places  Maps.

Tap the map “Sydney Walking Tracks” which should now be on the Maps menu

You will now be able to follow any walking route as it will show you your location on the map,

 

On an Iphone or Ipad just click on this link and the map will open but it will not show your location on the map.

Feedback

We would appreciate any feedback on the app or the walking routes. Also, please feel free to pass on the link to anyone who might use it.

Parramatta Female Factory

The Walking Volunteers

The most beautiful walk in Europe

By on 21 June, 2019 in Walks
One of the awesome aspects of being a member of a bushwalking club is discovering new places to walk and knowing what are the most beautiful and amazing places to explore. By joining a club walk, you often save yourself weeks of time researching destinations, maps, routes, access logistics, weather conditions and all other trip details. Amazingly, the trip leaders do this mountain of work for you – for free!
When I joined the Coast and Mountain Walkers (CMW), a Sydney-based bushwalking club specialising in overnight walks, I was looking forward to discovering fabulous new adventures within NSW. The CMW certainly didn’t let me down. They took me on stunning walks in NSW and across Australia. I was amazed and impressed. I learnt so much about how to walk, how to camp with the lightest-weight gear, as well as, of course, where to walk!

 

 

But my amazement didn’t end there, because what I wasn’t counting on was the CMW members’ amazing knowledge of walks in Europe. CMW members have walked in so many places in Europe and can tell you so much about the walks, how to get there, and how to have the best time while you are there.

 

 

Of all those fabulous walks in Europe their trips to the Dolomites, in northern Italy always seemed the most stunning. So, when I finally got the chance to go to Europe last (European) summer, a walk in the Dolomites was a must. But knowing the region doesn’t necessarily make it easier to be sure you’re going to get the absolute best walk for those precious few days you have in Europe.
To start my planning for this very special trip, I called a friend from CMW!  I asked him for walks he would recommend and he kindly shared loads of knowledge with me. He told me the best guide book to use, how to get around there using local transport, when was the best time to go, what the accommodation and food was like, what I needed to pack (and not pack), and what it was actually like being there.
I took his guidance and planned our walk. I choose to do the last six days of the Alta Via 1. These photos give you just a peek of that stunningly beautiful walk.
 

 

On the walk I ran into an old neighbour from Tasmania who had done the full Alta Via 1.  She exclaimed how the scenery just keep getting better every day.  I was delighted with yet more confirmation that my CMW guidance had paid off!
Stay tuned for more details of this amazing walk in our next newsletter! And in the meantime, find a club near you that will help you discover the most beautiful places to walk in NSW, the ACT and the world in our map of our clubs.

 

A Concreted Coast

By on 18 August, 2018 in Conservation, Walks

Central Coast Council approved a Master Plan for a permanent Walkway in March 2012 to provide a fully signposted concrete path which provides a safe route from Copacabana to Winney Bay, including a new north-facing and wheelchair accessible lookout at Captain Cook Lookout.

Concerned local Joy Cooper reached out to us recently concerning the concreting of the 5 Lands Walk in Winney Bay. She is not the only walker. Local residents are concerned about the damage done to ecological and cultural heritage of what was once a bushwalk track, now an 8 metre wide footpath that Joy Cooper describes as a ‘concreted coast’ that appeals more to tourists than walkers. As local walkers, bushwalking enthusiasts and trailblazers is there a line we draw when suggesting maintaining and improving tracks? We know it’s certainly something walkers can’t help wondering when seeing drastic changes on their favourite walk. Joy’s concerns below:

What a wonderful announcement from Adam Crouch with the huge sum of $4.6 million for his electorate, and for the Bulbararang cliff top walk.

What a shame the original plan for the walk had veered so far off the original plan. Having a bush-walk which makes it safer for walkers is wonderful and to link the two seaside village communities of Copacabana and Avoca Beach is superb. However to clear large areas of bushland to put in the walk way and concrete it, is a travesty and not needed, nor good practice.

If the current stairwell nearing completion is any indication residents will not be pleased. While residents were told in a community meeting the stairs were only 2 metres wide, the clearing of bushland has been more than 8 metres for more than 720 metres, and each week it is easy to see the clearing gets wider with more trees being damaged.

While machinery and fuel were to be kept in a compound on the old farm house site, sadly both were stored in bushland resulting in even more bush being cleared and damage occurring.

More than 60 trees were removed for this ‘nature walk’ for all to enjoy and remaining trees near the path were to have special protection to prevent any damage while construction was occurring, yet that did not happen and there have been numerous trees with damage and limbs torn off and thrown into the bush.

While the damage has occurred with the stairway to nowhere, despite numerous requests for it to stop before it was started, there was insistence by council for the stairs to be built, so the funding wasn’t lost. The cliff top ‘nature walk’ along Bulbararing is still to start. Residents should be concerned once again little or no information is made public until it is too late and the destruction has occurred.

While the original 2012 master-plan clearly shows the walk way through Winney Bay and along the Bulbarang cliff top is to be bush track and even shows images with no concrete to be seen, the current plans are nothing like that. The current plans are for a concrete pathway and vehicular access to market stalls, cantilevered cliff top platform for destination weddings along with a whale carcass shaped bridgeover a huge ravine which has very sorrowful memories for some in the community.

The original master plan mentions ‘existing areas of unique, intact native vegetation which high aesthetic appeal’ in Winney Bay and along the Bulbararing Headlands and there is mention of the need to keep the infrastructure ‘simple and discreet’. However the current plans in my opinion are nothing like that.

So, while we have a huge divergence from the original intention of the upgrade of the bush track and no consultation with the community, we also have the state government/Central Coast Regional Plan 2036/. With the second goal being to ‘Protect the natural environment and manage the use of agriculture and resource lands’. How we can do this and remove bushland by concreting vehicular access and concrete paths with large areas of batter doesn’t correlate for me.

Additionally, we have the recently adopted/ONE-Central Coast/adopted by Central Coast Council and the numerous mention of the need to protect our natural environment which is ‘cherished’. There is even mention of ‘expanding of the Costal Open Space System COSS’. Ironically, this Winney Bay area and Bulbararing cliff top are already part of COSS and there are numerous endangered ecological communities in the area.

 

What use are these documents if the powers that be can’t follow their own plans? What hope do we have of preserving bushland if it is degraded, neglected and then concreted? How can we connect to a place if it is all concreted?

Winney Bay and Bulbararing headland deserve the $4.6 million dollars which should be spent on employing trained people to rehabilitate the area and remove the bitou bush and harvest and grow local provenance vegetation, bringing back the natural beauty of the areaand providing the ‘bush track’ as originally intended. Not concrete creep and destruction.

Larapinta Trek 2018

By on 7 February, 2018 in Events, Walks

Trekking the incredible Larapinta Trail is an adventure on many people’s bucket lists.

Simpsons Gap, Northen Territory, Australia

 

Standing on ancient escarpments and gazing out upon the ochre-coloured landscapes of Central Australia, following Aboriginal Dreaming tracks and trekking beside one of the world’s oldest river systems is surely an adventure of a lifetime.

Our friends at Melanoma Institute Australia would like to invite you on their Outback Trek adventure in September 2018.

Not only will you experience a trek along one of Australia’s premier walking tracks, but you will be supporting life-saving research at Melanoma Institute Australia.

 

 

A view of Glen Helen Gorge on a clear winter’s day in Northern Territory, Australia

 

Australia has one of the highest rates of melanoma in the world. The good news is that 90% of melanomas can be successfully treated if detected early.

However, in the other 10% of cases, life-threatening spread will have already occurred.

More than 1,800 Australians will die from melanoma this year alone and it kills more young Australians (20-39 year olds) than any other single cancer.

Research at Melanoma Institute Australia has made significant progress in developing life-saving treatments, but support is still needed as there is still no cure. No-one should die from melanoma, and you can help make a difference while doing something that you love.

 

Mt. Sonder, West MacDonnell National Park, Northern Territory, Australia

 

By taking part in this unique adventure you’ll pave the way for new research to improve melanoma treatment, and ultimately find a cure.

Visit melanoma.org.au to find out more.

David’s Lane Cove River Minimal Impact Training walks

By on 29 January, 2018 in Conservation, Training, Walks

David will be leading two Minimal Impact Bushwalking Awareness Walks in Lane Cove National Park and this webpage shows the planned route. To book for these walks go to: Bushwalking NSW Minimal Impact Bushwalking Training Events

The walk will start at the Koonjerie Picnic Area in the Lane Cove National Park:

The walk will parts of the Great North Walk on the east side of the river after crossing at the Lane Cove Weir:

The walk goes back across the river near Christie Park where the river is not very wide or deep, and there are many rocks creating the crossing:

The walk will finish at the Macquarie Centre:

From here a 545 bus can be caught back to the starting point or Chatswood Station.

 

Two Valley Trail, Sunday 6 August, 2017

By on 23 June, 2017 in Events, Walks

The Two Valley Trail is a loop walk along Cooks River and Wolli Creek, for a total length of about 12km.  While many are familiar with the bicycle and pedestrian path following Cooks River, the bushland along Wolli Creek in this part of inner south west Sydney is less well known.  Indeed it’s nothing short of a miracle that this gem has been preserved at all.  If you would like to get to know it, come along on Sunday 6 August.

The walk starts and finishes at Tempe Station.  For detailed information and to book, please email Ute Foster or call 0424 646 877.