Day Trips from Sydney : West Head Lookout and Barrenjoey Lighthouse

Sydney, Australia, where we spent a week for our daughter's Graduation this month, has such a wide choice of beaches and bays within the city boundaries like nowhere else. In combination with the year-round near-perfect weather, it makes for an unbeatable life style - no wonder those young people don't want to come home.

We set out from Sydney with a rental car, across the iconic Harbour Bridge towards Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to the north. The name Ku-ring-gai derives from the aboriginal tribe Kuringgai that used to live here but were eradicated when the British settlers came.

The northern most tip of the NP, Barrenjoey Head, is occupied by a lighthouse. A short steep walk leads up from the car park. 

 Barrenjoey Lighthouse with the Southern Pacific Ocean to the left and Pittwater Bay to the right. Our daughter promised this was one of only three days per year with not-so-fine weather ... 

a lonely surfer

I had brought my light 300 mm lens for birds:

a Masked Lapwing  (Vanellus miles)

a Honeyeater

Pittwater Bay

As it was very windy and started to rain, we consulted google maps and decided to drive around Pittwater Bay to West Head Lookout on the other side to see the view from the other direction.

And as luck would have it, during the half hour in the car, the winds chased away the clouds and when we got out of the car, this view surprised us:

Barrenjoey Lighthouse from West Head Lookout

West Head Lookout is an extremely beautiful spot with lots of short walks to explore the area. 

One walk leads to "Red hand cave", an aboriginal site with hand printings in ochre on the sandstone. 

a Pied Currawong

We met a Kookaburra who came ever closer and seemed to listen on to what we said for quite a while ... These birds of the kingfisher-family often sit quietly on a look-out for long stretches of time watching you and when you turn around and notice them, they seem to smile back ... it must be the impression of their lower yellowish upturned beak. 

He suddenly rushed off, when a big ugly hen-like bird dressed in German flag colours appeared, with huge, dangerous looking feet. It ran straight at me closing in below the minimum focusing distance which is 1,4 m for this 300 mm lens: an Australian Brush-Turkey! It was even more unafraid of us than the Kookaburra, and we moved slowly back to keep a distance.  

 Maybe he just wanted to talk to a German...