One of the best bits about doing this 30 days to overnight hiking challenge, run by professional blogger Caro Ryan at lotsafreshair, is that I now have the opportunity to show off the local firetrails in my area whilst I do my training walks.

Today, I had just finished a three hour drive back from a family holiday in Canberra and needed to stretch the legs. So I decided to join the short Cliffview firetrail walk to the longer wideview firetrail and hoped that would give me a good hour of training.

I set off along cliffview drive and came to a family favourite spot known by the locals as Lionel’s landing. This was a small area of bushland maintained by the locals as a family friendly picnic and walking area. We had a picnic here ourselves once and found a frog pond. I walked down below the landing to a set of sandstone overhangs that were very pretty.

I then climbed back out and entered the cliffview fire trail proper. Whilst walking I considered a conversation I had with a Facebook group on the need for gaiters and how I am reluctant to buy them. I also thought about all the posts of late on the community Facebook page featuring a surge in snake sighting and wondered why I hadn’t seen any. So I looked in rock crevices and up in the trees as I walked. Fortunately I kept one eye on the ground as I was about to step on an enormous green tree snake!

We regarded each other for a moment. I stepped slowly backwards whilst snapping a picture and it got bored and slithered off quickly into the bush.

Hmmm. Gaiters. Ugh! I just don’t like the look of them!

I walked in a wide arc around where the snake was last seen and soon came to the amazing lookout that was the highlight of the wideview firetrail!

I sometimes come here on a Sunday morning to recharge. There is a stone shaped into a kind of throne so one can sit and survey the valley and clear your mind.

The walk then followed a line of cliffs that were quite imposing and impossible to capture properly on camera. The trail decended a ways then rose to meet a rock platform. Off to one side were some beautiful white plants swaying in the breeze that I would love some help identifying. There is a picture below.

The trail ended too quickly on Lonsdale ave. I walked the road intending to do a loop around town but decided to just turn around and do the firetrail again! It was uphill this time (funny… it didn’t do that on the way out..) so I got some good exercise out of it. Instead of walking back along the cliffview trail I exited the wideview trail onto wideview road and headed home.

This was a very lovely walk and I know I’ll do it again and again!