Blue Arrow Pictures

So I went back to the Blue Arrow yesterday and took some photographs... Here they are! Well some of them anyway.

So first off I came across some sort of huge lizard, can't remember it's name right now but they are fairly common in the bush up here.
I have left the pic of it at the end because I want to keep the photo large and it looks crap having a picture at the start that's massive.

Right the first pic is just of the path ways and it shows you how nice the actual walk is, there's always birds chirping and sometimes even a kingfisher drops by. But never for too long.

I'm told the snakes on this walk are pretty good and used to walkers. They seem to scramble off pretty fast. 

  

Good view form one of the many lookouts

    

This is the path! I kid you not - that's my backpack on it. Get a few snakes in there I reckon

 
   

 Another view of the walking track

My fav place on the whole walk, the crisp cool rainforest stream.

  

Blue Arrow

Okay this was a pretty good hike, lots of stairs and no scrambling to speak of.

The hike starts off from the 'Red Arrow' track, the hub of after work fitness fanatics. So quickly move through that and you're past all those wankers abusing their bodies for the sake of looks.
Once past the Red you make a short climb ( all climbs are really steps in this walk) up to the lookout. This wasn't really that great when I was there - there was quite a number of low lying clouds about.
Now the Blue really starts, first off is a short spell of downhill and then Bang! Feels like it's straight up, and the winding steps along the ridge line just keep going on forever.
After about 20 minutes of this you come to another lookout- oh ( I forgot to mention this hike is a circuit track so I am walking clockwise) this lookout has some better views and you can even see out to some of the cays in the ocean.
This is a fairly slow climb to the summit of the mountain is approx 350 meters and is relatively easy, there is an abundance of local wild life and I did get a little scared when I came across a bloody huge snake! By a little search it most likely was the Eastern Brown Snake Picture here.

So another hour on and it's the half way point with another lookout, this one is good.
You can see a lot of the rainforest to the west and even make out patches of reef out to sea, it was great and I stayed a while.
So it's a little walk back and mostly downhill now and the absolute highlight was coming across a stream and being able to submerge myself in the crisp cool rainforest water. It was such a refreshing feeling.

So back to town and I'll be doing that walk again some time soon.

Back

Happy new year!
Well I had a bloody good trip over seas for a few weeks but back now.
I can't even remember what hike I was going to write about......
So The next one will be called the 'Blue Arrow'.
It's a tough one and they say it takes about three hours to do, the reason I'm keen on this one is it's a circuit track so none of that walk for ages and go back the way you came crap.
Apparently you can see the great barrier reef from the peak of the mountain, guess I'll find out soon enough.

Bob's ramble

Okay going away for a while, will post more in a few weeks to all my loyal followers! lol

Bob's Sailing blog

So went for a pretty good yacht race last Wednesday, half way to Green island and back to the inlet.

Wind was good and to start of we saw a stingray jump out of the water! I know right? wtf is a stingray doing jumping out of the water.... Well it did anyway.
So we cruised along tacking all the way out was a bit of hard work, but it payed off... All the way back in way mostly smooth sailing.
Just what I went for, having a few drinks I was on the tiller so the normal skipper could have a few more drinks than he usually would have had.
We weren't the fastest boat in the fleet but we did okay, hit a dead zone and was just heading in thanks to the incoming tide.
Might have some pics of the race in the next post...

Glacier Rock p2

Okay, did some more walking the view from the top was good, then I walked back down to the bottom.

You might be able to make out the railway tracks down below, remember that is about the half way point!
The end.

legal stuff

So after being refereed to the Nature conservation act 1992 all I can see in there is section;

16/
protect the area’s exceptional scientific values and, in
particular—
(i) to ensure that the processes of nature continue
unaffected in the area; and
(ii) to protect the area’s biological diversity to the
greatest possible extent,

Nothing about closing a section of a national park for safety reasons which is the reason given.

More later