Its always nice to return to Royal National Park with a camera. On this trip I saw a variety of wildlife (birds, lizards and snakes) and a great display of wildflowers.
Royal National Park has a mixture of landscapes – sea cliffs, coastal heathlands, sandy beaches, lagoons, bays and headlands and some great waterfalls.
I find it strange that two spots in the park have in recent times become extraordinarily popular with certain people – perhaps those on Instagram? These are Wedding Cake Rock near Bundeena and The Figure of Eight Pool near Burning Palms. These are nice spots to be sure, but only a small part of what the park has to offer, and there are certainly more interesting and more spectacular places.
Instagrammers at Figure of Eight Pool
I was hoping for some atmospheric weather, and in this my hopes were not fully realised. I think that photographers often whinge about light conditions.
Along the Coastal Track, there had been a lot of track work in the past few years. Lately the track between Bundeena and Marley has been upgraded. This work generally seems to have been well done. However, things have gone overboard at Wedding Cake Rock. An ugly fence (supposedly temporary) has been constructed to keep instagrammers away from the rock. The rock does look quite unstable, but then again a lot of the coastal cliffs are like this.
Wedding Cake Rock
Fence to keep Instagrammers out
Other parts of the Coastal Track are badly eroded and deeply entrenched. Some of the worst bits near the Palm Jungle have been duck boarded. More bad bits are between Wottamolla and Marley and on the tops north of Garie. I guess these will be fixed some time in the future? On my visit I saw track workers upgrading the track on the steep hill north of Garie. Some of the old steps are so badly eroded they are about a metre high, so the new work is certainly welcome.
Two of the attractions of Royal are the wildflowers and the birds. You cannot help noticing both. In particular the honeyeaters.
At Curracurrong is one of the highest waterfalls in the Sydney area. This is a very dramatic, where Curracurrong Brook falls at least 50 m into the sea. It is right beside the spectacular Eagle Rock. A little to the south is another waterfall that is about the same height, but slightly less in volume. This is where Curra Brook does the same thing. Another dramatic overhanging waterfall. However there is also a third equally high waterfall in that area. I had spotted it when I was doing some dawn photography from Otford. Looking at my photos of the sea cliffs, I had noticed the glint of sunlight reflecting off a torrent of water, but looking at the map I could see that it could not be Curra or Curracurrong Falls. The map showed there was one one more creek, not far to the south of Curra Brook – it must be that one. I knew that creek, so on this trip I checked to see if it was possible to get from the heath, where the track crosses it, to the cliffs. It was. It turned out to be a short easy excursion. This is one waterfall that I will have to return to in higher water.
Curracurrong Falls and Eagle Rock
Curra Falls
Un-named falls
Royal National Park is a beautiful park and a great venue for photography. A good place to see and appreciate Nature.
More photos of my visit are on my website here.
Stunning pics.
Your small snake is a lizard – a Common Scalyfoot
One giveaway is the regenerated tail – snakes can’t regenerate their tail.
Thanks for that Andrew. I did wonder about what it was – but could not see ear holes. But then the head is actually a bit obscured.