The Long Track & Cowan Trail

It’s a cracker of a winter's day, and I’ve decided to try a trail I never finished, The Long Track in Ku-ring Gai chase national park. See, this trail and I have a bit of history. A while back, on a warm day, I started this trail not knowing how hot the day was about to get. I also didn’t know how dehydrated I was. After a couple of kilometres, I started to feel overly hot and decided to turn around. I made the decision to chill out under a rock overhang, out of the sun, for a while before slowly making back to the air conditioned car. What I was experiencing was heat stress, and that day is why I don’t bushwalk on extremely hot days in Australia anymore. Anyway, today was winter, and there was no chance of any of the heat-related stuff happening today. I planned to do the Long Trail and, if I had enough time, do a side trip down the Cowan Trail.

I start from a closed road, and it’s a bit of a maze to get onto the main trail. I play it safe and follow the main road to the Perimeter Trail. It’s not long until I reach the trailhead for the Long Track. At the start of the trail, there is a sign permitting horse riders to use the trail. Sadly, I didn’t cross paths with any horse riders today, but I did see their footprints.

Walking along, I’m greeted with many winter-blooming species of flowers, including Banksia and a few variants of Grevillea and the odd wattle. One thing that is hard to miss is all the hollowed-out scribbly gums from bushfires. They’re bending over and growing out in all sorts of ways and directions. A few of them a supporting life from the tree hollows. It’s something that is unique to this trail.

After a while, I get to the junction for the Cowan trail and decide to complete the Long Track first and come back to do the Cowan trail. As I start to crest the first small hill, I head into the bush to find the trig station TS3914 ROACH. I find it, but sadly, it’s just a heap of large rocks.

As I walk further, I spot a stand of Yellow Top Mallee Ash - Eucalyptus luehmanniana F.Muell, which is a nice treat. Soon after, I pull out the binoculars and spot the lovely Spotted pardalote. Later that day, I saw a white-bellied sea eagle soaring high above the trail. I had just enough time to find the binoculars and watch it soar.

To my right, I get small glances of the ridge on the other side of the valley, and you can see the trail that goes to Mount Murray Anderson (630m)

I finally reach a small lookout that’s right on the trail's edge. It looks down to Cowan Creek, which has the odd boat powering by. The rock ledge of the lookout is quite large, and I walk about and explore it a bit. Not too long after, I find the rock ledge where I rested on that hot day, all those years ago.

I find a small rocky crevice, and it’s begging to be explored. I crawl into it and have a look around the corner and admire its structure. It's likely it was one large rock that had split a long time ago. I’m too big and too old to crawl out the narrow side of the crevice, so I decide to backtrack out.

I get closer to the second trig station on this trail, TS2882 LONG. A keen eye can spot it from the trail. It’s still intact and has the ruins of the vanes that once stood long ago.

I finally get to the end of the trail, and there is a hitching rail for horses and a stunning view of Cowan Creek. This area is labelled as Peach Trees on the map. Don’t be fooled, there are no peach trees. I sit down and enjoy a late lunch and soak up the amazing view. After lunch, I follow the cliff line to the right, where the view opens up, and I think you can see the Hawkesbury River as well in the distance. Normally, I’d sit about for an hour or so, but I look at the time and decide I have enough daylight to back track and do the Cowan Trail. I backtrack the 4km to the Cowan Trail junction and relax my pace.

The trail is less maintained than the Long Trail, with grass often growing in the middle. It’s late in the day, and the filtered light on the trail is nice. I see a small rocky platform and walk out onto it. I accidentally disrupt a flock of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos hidden to my side in a shrub. They don’t stick around long at all and gracefully fly to another section of the National Park.

Near the end of the trail, I come across a Spirit Rock, an Aboriginal site. It’s sign posted and has a barrier with warnings of fines. The sun is so late in the day that you can see a few of the markings. I later read that one of the engravings is of the Baiame deity. Baiame is commonly seen at male initiation sites (bora grounds) where boys are initiated into manhood. Women were also not allowed to speak of or see drawings of Baiame. It was often thought that Baiame was a construct of the early Christian missionaries. But this has since been proven to be false with ancient rock art of Baiame that pre-dates the European arrival.

I continue on to the end of the trail, where I’m treated to another view of Cowan Creek with the sun setting in the distance. From the lookout, you can see the boats down at Apple Tree Bay. After soaking up the view, I start the long walk back to the car, getting there right on sunset. The total walk length was just under 17km for both trails, with all the side exploring.