by John New
River Heritage Circuit Walk
It was a lovely day for this walk at Sydney Olympic Park along some of the River Heritage Circuit cycleway. The idea was to meet up at 10am, it's usually a bit cooler in the morning in February, and then finish up by about noon. Unfortunately that plan didn't quite work out. Somehow the Walks Coordinator and the Sydney Sniffers read the meeting instructions differently and went to different carparks to start the walk. It seemed that it might be the first walk ever with no walkers!
Thank goodness for mobile phones. We discovered we weren't all that far apart and managed to meet up and start about 10:30am from a slightly different place than planned. After cutting across an oval, we made it to the River Heritage Circuit and began the walk proper. About 20 people and 12 beagles. (Note to Self: check meeting directions and work out what happened!)
Some of the key features of the walk are: it's very easy and flat along a nice wide cycleway; it's very busy with lots of cyclists; the cyclists usually don't let you know they're coming. These key features meant we needed to be on the lookout for cyclists during the whole walk, which made it pretty tricky. There were also other walkers, with and without dogs, runners, one roller-blader, and one couple pushing a baby in a pram. A very popular place.
We walked from the carpark to the Sydney Olympic Park Wharf and back, about 6kms, which was just about the right distance. Particularly because it was getting hot around the middle of the walk and there weren't many shady sections. We were next to the Parramatta River and this was a nice view right throughout the walk, even though there weren't any cool breezes. On our way back we stopped for a welcome snack and drink at the Armory Wharf Cafe.
The beagles seemed to enjoy the walk. In one section, there was a kind of long trough full of water, just wide enough for a beagle to walk along. It was really funny to watch a line of beagles walking along the trough, cooling their paws. A few beagles also jumped into the Parramatta River for a swim at one point.
On the whole, this was a pretty enjoyable walk. There are lots of cycleways around the Sydney Olympic Park so we will probably return again for another interesting adventure.