"Bush" Variation

Decided to do something a bit different for my Wednesday long this morning, tackling the Great North Walk from Boronia Park for as long as I could before I had to turn around and head to back to work at St Leonards.

Left at about 5:15 to start the short jog from home to join up with the GNW, hooking in just across the road from Joeys on Ryde Rd. One small problem at that time of the morning – it’s still quite dark. This made the descent to the Lane Cove River a fairly slow and careful one, with a couple of smacks in the face from low branches for my trouble.

Made my way along through fairly difficult terrain – the path isn’t particularly good quality, making my way through Boronia Park and up along the Lane Cove River to Epping Road. I took the wrong subway here and had to cross the bridge over the river on the road against traffic – just a quick sprint (amazing what motivation does).

Worked my way through the next section through Fairylands, and across Fuller’s Bridge and into Lane Cove National Park. Made a bit of a navigational cock-up and took the tarmac road along the river from the conference centre instead of following the road through the carpark and rejoining the GNW at the top of the hill.

As a result, I rejoined the wide bark trail at the soil depot and then, on spotting a GNW sign, proceeded to follow the trail in what turned out to be the wrong direction, coming out at the conference centre carpark, where I should have joined from Lady Game Drive. Oh well.

Ran to Redbank Oval, and a combination of an unclear path and time pressure saw me turn around here. I followed the path back to the park soil depot, then took the paved road to Fullers Bridge, and fast-walked the steep section Fullers Road, before running to the Pacific Highway at Chatswood. From there, I ran to St Leonards, with a little loop through Artarmon to make distance up to 25km.

Total distance 25.28km in 2:37:44. Slow, but the terrain wasn’t really conducive to fast times. Really enjoyed the run, I must admit – good clear air, birds waking and chirping, you could be just about anywhere. It was sorely tempting to keep going from Redbank Oval, and one day I might sneak a day off and see how far I can push up the GNW.

I’ll see how I feel this afternoon, and how it is, before making the call on running home. Looks like at this point – I feel fine, although the feet feel like they’ve had a good going over.