Sunday Morning Run

[khiemtran]

Jumping ahead to Sunday now, and I'm on my weekly "long" run. I've already missed the sunrise, but this time I'm keen to learn more about the mysterious lake I spotted the last time I was out here.



Back I go, past the sand dunes at Wanda...



And over into unexplored territory. There's the lake in the distance. It looks much to close to the sea to be natural.



Sure enough, it turns out to be a flooded quarry.



There's a path leading towards it, so I set off to see how close I can get.



A smaller flooded quarry on my left. Sand from the Kurnell peninsular was used for building all over Sydney. In fact, geological, the whole peninsular is really just an island and a giant sand bank. That's Botany Bay in the background. Behind me is the Tasman Sea.



Unfortunately, there's not much to see at the main quarry - it's shielded by a fence and a huge berm.



Soon, all of this will be new housing. I run along a brand new path with benches facing the quarry boundary. I guess one day there will something more scenic to look at.



On the way back, a black-shouldered kite. It's not hard to see where it gets its name from. I wonder if this one will stick around once the houses come.



Heading back over the remaining dunes, you can see the new housing on the right. At least the margin to the sea seems to be being preserved.

Comments

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Those dunes are glorious. I particularly like the first photo, with the sort of terrace effect.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, they're certainly cool to look at. Apparently, there were once so many dunes that they would film desert scenes for movies there. There's very little left at all now.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Love that kite! That is one seriously chunky bird of prey.

And I can't believe how close those new houses are to the shore - you obviously don't have our problem of galloping coastal erosion...

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, I hope they've thought everything through... The coastline's not exactly galloping at this part though.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

That's a fierce looking kite!

Oops. Did some funky key combo that posted before I was ready.

was going to say: I do hope they keep the land by the sea in its natural state.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Black-shouldered kites are quite common around here. This one was eyeing me because I had just forced it to move off the fence as I came along and now it was sitting on a sign by the path I needed to take next.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Black-shouldered kites are very cool birds, what with their ruby eyes. And I like the dune photo early on that looks like an army has passed over it.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

It was probably an army of bootcampers, running up and down the hill. If you look carefully, you can just make out a small group of people at the top of the ridge.

[carl-allery.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. How far did you end up running because that looks some distance to the quarry?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

It was 37 kms in total. I've been slowly building up each week and I'm almost in range of a marathon now.