January is a time to stay at home for us this year, but it’s still holiday time in Beecroft. If you jump over our back fence you could scramble along the dry creek bed to meet up with the part of the bush at the bottom of Day Road in Cheltenham (edge of Malton Road). Once at the bottom of Day Road, you can walk down the bush track that connects to the Great North Walk which is a 250 km walking track that runs between Sydney to Newcastle. Phew!
The Great North Walk was developed from Gary McDougall’s and Leigh Shearer Heriot’s proposal for a ‘Sydney to Hunter Track’, consisting of about 300km of walking tracks, submitted to the Australian Bicentennial Authority in 1988. I have been told that it incorporates a few convict tracks along part of its route, but I have only ever walked parts closest to home. It is estimated that more than 40,000 local, interstate and international visitors use the walk annually, either taking the challenge of the full 12-16 day hike or enjoying shorter walks of one or two days in different sections of the walk.
The bush is very solitary – yet you also meet lots of people walking or on bikes along the way.
Here are some mobile phone shots of the walk near home.
See and download the full gallery on posterous
Posted via email from Heyjude’s posterous
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judyoconnell.com 
Have you submitted photos to the banner competition at the Great North Walk website?. I’ve discovered it recently and found it most helpful.
Wow! That’s quite amazingly lucky – or unlucky, depending on how one looks at it!
That’s very interesting, Judy. I didn’t know that about Beecroft. When we lived in Cabramatta for 9 years I used to escape to beautiful Beecroft to have my haircut – a little luxury. A lovely place, but I didn’t know about the walks!
Know this walk well, Judy.
I have often thought that people who live in Sydney are lucky to have such quality ‘wilderness’ at their doorstep. I used to live in Springwood, in the Blue Mountains and bushwalking was so easy to do, just started walking from our house and the trails all intersected.
My hope is that in the future my daughters are camping enthusiasts. Nothing is better to rejuvenate one’s mental health than a trek and then camping. Unfortunately, their mother will not be accompanying us. Kate is not an enthusiast for camping and after 12 years of life in the same home, I have never got her to camp.
Admittedly, I haven’t tried for the last 11 ;O)
It’s the trying that gets you sometimes! I only went camping once with my husband, who I had urged to come along for years. Would you believe, first night in a tent and lightening struck the tree standing just a metre from the tent’s edge. You guessed it..that tent has never left the garage with my husband in it again!