Mummy, my legs hurt

Near Mittagong Distance: 8.7km return Duration: ~ 4 hours We were looking for a peaceful adventure on ANZAC day and Richie found this nice little walk on the other side of Mittagong.  Box Vale walking track follows an old train cutting with a tunnel near the end, and passes some historic coal mining bits and pieces through lovely cool southern highlands forest. In autumn it was absolutely full of a myriad of frilly, lumpy and blobby toadstools which were fun to photograph. The tramway line was built in 1888 to carry coal mined in Nattai Gorge to the main line at Mittagong. The line passes through several cuttings and a tunnel, and ends at the "incline", where coal was brought up from the gorge. It was closed in 1896 and the tramway abandoned, and was later opened as a walking track in 1996. And we hit a milestone today... 4 hours walking, nearly 9km - the furthest we've gone as a family, yet there was no fighting, no whining; they had fun and collected ro...

Registering for this event as a UTA training run (to practice race day nutrition) seemed like a good idea at the time. But on the bus to the start line with Jaime, pre-dawn in an unfamiliar part of Sydney, 40km all of a sudden seemed like a really long way. I don't usually get start line nerves anymore but the enormity of this run hit me early that morning! As the sun broke over Manly Dam, I was glad to have Jaime there for company. We'd travelled in together and were both freaking out a little bit. I spotted a few other guys and girls I knew at the start line, then we were off! I lost Jaime right away as the field spread out, but I was ok with starting off easy. There was a little bit of road at the start then onto lots of single track goodness around Bantry Bay and Killarney Heights. There were some brief flat moments but overall there was heaps of big gnarly technical bits in this race, made more intimidating by the fact that I had never been to this area and di...

Near Blackheath NSW Distance: ~1 km Duration: 45 minutes What a magical find this little walk is. Tucked away down below a hairpin turn on Megalong Rd, if you blink you'll miss the tiny carpark area opposite the start of this walk. A small signpost points the way to the start of the track, and whilst the track itself is rough and steep in parts, overall it's what I'd call an easy walk because it's so short. There's some typical snaggle-toothed blue mountains stairs to get down to some beautiful small falls forming the centrepiece of a natural amphitheater. The mermaid's cave itself is supposedly up higher on the cliff wall but we didn't even notice it, we were too busy with our heads down spotting a wide variety of stunning toadstools as there had been substantial rain recently. The falls flow softly over some gently sloping rocks which of course are slippery; remind the little ones that green rocks = a sore bum when you slip! Ty and...