I’ll be preaching on the passages, and at Nooma we’ll be looking at them, and I’d also encourage you to join the conversation here on the website. Each week I’ll post the set of readings, and invite you to add your thoughts and reflections in the comments.

You can download the E100 Reading Plan, or pick up a copy at Church, or just look them up here.

Acts 10:44-48 | John 15:9-17

I had thought this sermon through before I realised that I’d be giving it on Mothers Day, and I worried about how to tie the day in.  I think I’ve done it … see if you can spot my clever and subtle link!

I feel I can confidently say that everyone here, if asked, would say, “I am not a racist.”

I’m not a racist.  In just the last week I’ve had a wine with Majid Khan (well, he’s a Moslem so he had juice), shared a joke about Italian food with Genevra Bartolocci, helped Aisyah Musa to construct an customer letter, flirted outrageously with Priya Sivalingam, had a yarn about the football with Raymond Ng, received excellent advice on TVs from Kheng Trang,  got a very nice email from my friend Melinda Yang, discussed hunting in the Ukraine with Irina Zenchenko and wished my mate Guan Hoe Soon in Singapore a happy birthday.   I’ve sympathised over the tornado damage done to the Mashiko potter Takeshita Shikamaru’s home and studio and celebrated with my brother Euan & my sister-in-law Mikako on the completion of his kiln in Minakama.  I’ve even been nice to my boss – and she’s a Kiwi!

Unfortunately, in the same timeframe I have at least once said, “Bloody Asian drivers”, made disparaging remarks about Indian call centres, told Owen to take a shotgun with him when he went to play rugby in Merrylands, and said, “Typical, what do you expect from …” well, you get the idea.

So … am I after all a racist?  Do I embody deeply ingrained prejudices that blind me to the real qualities of people?  Am I inherently incapable of behaving like a Christian?  Or is my track record with individuals the real me, and I just have a bad habit of making nasty generalisations?

This isn’t a new piece of agony for me, and it’s certainly not a new piece of agony for our church.  The story of Peter at the centurion Cornelius’ house in today’s reading from the Book of Acts is one of the earliest and most telling examples.

The reading is from the end of Chapter 10 of Acts. A vision of an angel tells the “devout and God-fearing” centurion Cornelius, in Caesarea, to summon the disciple Peter.  Peter is staying in Joppa, known today as Jaffa, about 30 miles away.  While Cornelius’ servants are on their way to Joppa Peter also has a vision in which God commands him to kill & eat non-kosher animals.  In the vision a voice says, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

Peter and a few of his faithful followers subsequently go to Caesarea and enter Cornelius’ house, where there’s a large gathering of people.  Peter says, “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.”

Peter preaches to the Gentiles, and then our reading starts:  the Holy Spirit comes to “all who heard the message.  The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles.

“Then Peter said, “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.”

This was quite a shock for the Jewish Christians with Peter.  Remember, THEY were God’s Chosen People: in Deuteronomy, YHWH proclaims the Nation of Israel as his “treasured people out of all the people on the face of the earth”.  Traditional Jewish belief is that Genesis tells how God had promised that he will never exchange his people with any other.

And now, God is pouring out his holy spirit on the Gentiles.  This causes a reaction that will be felt for years.  Six or seven years later in about 50 AD, the Council at Jerusalem had to consider the question of whether Gentiles could become Christians without first becoming Jews. That council was won over by Peter and James.  But so very soon after the risen Christ said to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”, there was debate about exclusiveness, there was prejudice against the otherness, there was, frankly, racism.  If you weren’t already in the club, you had to join the club.

By the way, all Jewish religious movements agree that a person may be a Jew either through conversion or by birth.  Halacha is the collective body of Jewish religious law, including biblical, talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.  According to halacha to be born a Jew you must be born to a Jewish mother.

Happy Mothers Day, Judaism!

Anyway, it seems to me that the behaviour of the Jewish Christians in Caesarea echoes similar doubts to those I have about my behaviour.  And their response gives me great hope. Despite their misgivings, the Jewish Christians accepted the new Gentile Christians.

Why, and how did it work?

Our second reading gives the answer.  Love.  Love transcends national borders and ethnic identities.  Love speaks more loudly than any language or any action.  Love unites, love forgives, love accepts. But the real secret is in the last three words Jesus said in the text.  “Love one another.”

Sue and I have a very dear friend named Darika whose parents brought her to Australia as a very small child.  Darika routinely refers to Indians, including herself, as ‘curries’.  In the wrong context, that could be deeply offensive, but clearly that’s not the way Darika says it, nor the way her friends hear it.

Because they hear with love, as much as she speaks with love.  To love each other is a two way street, and if we speak with love and hear with love, then there is no hurt.  But if love is absent, on either side, there is more chance to offend and hurt.

Loving isn’t easy, and I find that listening with love is even harder than speaking with love.  That’s why loving each other, a two way street, is so important.

I rattled off the names of a lot of people at the beginning of this talk.  They are people whom I love, although given my admission that I flirted with Priya I must point out that I mean love in the non-romantic sense.  That’s the love Christ taught us, and because of that love, I think I’m probably OK.  Just as the early Christians in Caesarea were OK.  Just as the Christian church has grown across all languages and ethnicities, I think I’m able to extend my love as well. If we love one another.

I just have to work on limiting my bad habit of making nasty generalisations.

Amen

Partly, I’m sure, its something to do with the suburban life that I live. My encounters with sheep are limited, brief, and mostly from a distance. Apart from the very occasional visit to the Easter show, sheep for me are basically white blobs which dot the hillside – and my encounters with shepherds are rare still. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a conversation with a shepherd, not sure I’ve even met one.

Of course it made sense for David, and Jesus, to talk about shepherds and sheep. That was the world they knew, the world they experienced. It’s not mine. Not, I’m guessing, yours. Not likely to be Nathan’s, when he grows up.

But that’s not my main problem with the sheep stories. We know that the Bible presents us with problems of context, of making sense, in our modern age, of stories told in an ancient world. It’s part of the struggle of reading scripture – and it is testament to the incredible power of the Biblical narrative that despite all the changes in the world since the words were first written, they still ring true for us today.

No, my problem with the stories of God as shepherd and us as sheep is basically this: sheep are stupid. I mean, maybe I’m wrong, as I said, I don’t know a lot of sheep, but as far as I can see, the main thing you can say about sheep is that they are not the brightest animals in the field.

And not just stupid – I mean, that’s all relative, compared with God we obviously have no deep wisdom to boast of – but they’re also so passive. The life of a sheep seems to consist of wandering around eating grass, maybe following another sheep as if it knew where it was going, not realising it was just wandering at random as well. To follow like sheep is the very byword for passively going along with the crowd, unthinkingly accepting the opinion of the masses, allowing the flock to do your thinking for you.

In fact, sheep represent a very common caricature of Christians – as people who accept what they are told from the pulpit, follow their leader without thinking, accept some nice, safe, socially acceptable set of norms without ever thinking for themselves.
Blindly accepting the status quo, living just like everyone else does, is so far from the way of Jesus, who turned his world upside down. The 1980’s indie rock band The Housemartins, had a song call “Sheep”, railing against the way most people didn’t seem to notice the injustices of the world around them because they were too busy being like everyone around them “When you see a crowd,” they sang, “I see a flock… it’s sheep we’re up against.”.

While I was in Sri Lanka after Easter I was at one point talking to a minister in a Church there. His spoken English was good, but rather formal, and oddly stilted when talking about Church. At one point he asked me “how my sheep were”. I obviously looked a little puzzled, for he quickly corrected himself “your flock,” he said, “how is your flock?”. You know when I look at the people of St. John’s, at this congregation and at the growing place, I can conjure up a lot of images, but one thing I don’t see is sheep.

Which is as it should be. For these passages, Psalm 23, Jesus’ Good Shepherd parables and the like, don’t really talk about us as sheep. David doesn’t start “I am the Lord’s sheep”. He starts “The Lord is my Shepherd”. Jesus doesn’t start “You are my flock”, he says “I am the Good Shepherd”.

These passages are not about sheep. They are about shepherds. Or rather, about the Shepherd.

For David, the emphasis in Psalm 23, is on the Shepherd as the one who provides. His psalm is a song of green pastures, still waters, a banqueting table, goodness and mercy.

But if that were all he had to say, his song would be instantly forgettable, a trite praise song written by someone who either knew nothing of life or chose to ignore what he knew. It wouldn’t be, as it is, one of the best loved poems in the English language, the most common reading at funerals (at least a half of the funerals I have taken have included this psalm as a reading or song).

Because while this psalm declares God’s goodness and provision, it contains the profound recognition of the darkness of life. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet will I fear no ill, for you are with me.”

The valley of darkness is just as real as the green pastures, and the profound insight of the psalm is that God is as present in the one as the other. And we, with the benefit of reading this in the light of Jesus, in the light of Easter, can say it more clearly still: even in the shadow death our God is with us, for our God has walked through that same shadow, walked through that valley. And by faith we hold onto that word: we do not walk “in” the valley of darkness, we walk “through” it. Beyond the shadow, the sun shines.

The faith we have today welcomed Nathan into is not one of green pastures and still waters; or rather, it is a faith of those things, but it is also a faith of darkness and shadow. There is no expectation of ease in the Christian life; but there is a promise of the presence of God.

And yes, there is a feast, a table prepared, a time and place, perhaps, to celebrate with friends and family, with those we love; but even as the table is prepared, the presence of enemies is also acknowledged.

And I wonder how you read that phrase – you must have heard it a thousand times – “you prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies”. What image does that conjure up for you?

For years I’ve had this sense of that phrase as God preparing a feast for God’s people, with the enemies of God outside looking on: we’ve got a feast and they haven’t. “In the presence of my enemies”… I’ve heard it almost as if I would be sitting there, eating this amazing meal, and turning to my enemies outside as if to say “sucks to be you! My God is looking after me!”

Or maybe you read the same words with an edgier feel. As if to say “even when you feast, be aware, your enemies are not far away.”

But then I read Jesus’ words: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold, I must bring them also…. There will be one flock, one shepherd”. And I hear his eternal challenge “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who harm you”. And I wonder again about those words – “You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies”. Could it be that my enemies will not be there as rejected outsiders, nor as an ever present danger, but as welcome guests? Could the psalmist be telling us that when we sit down at the table God has prepared for us our enemies will be there and we will dine with them as friends?

Could he even be calling us to make that happen?

Perhaps we, the people of God, are the people whose job it is to set the table so that all, friends, strangers, and enemies alike, may say “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.”

Amen.

1^st Half – Mt Kuring-gai Station to Crosslands Reserve (5.7km)

This is one of the most beautiful walks in the Berowra Valley Regional Park.  It descends a very steep fire trail to Lyrebird Gully, passing some lovely sandstone caves and waterfalls along the Calna Creek.  After crossing a twin log bridge it joins the rocky track along Berowra Creek to the boardwalk into Crosslands.

2^nd Half – Crosslands Reserve to Berowra Station (5.1km)

The walk returns to the twin log bridge and then crosses a salt marsh via a boardwalk.  It follows Berowra Creek past shell middens and a big lookout boulder before turning up Sam’s Creek.  It finally leaves the valley up zigzag steps for the final uphill stretch to Berowra.  It’s a tough but satisfying walk.

For more detailed information, including times and meeting points see 2012 Walk 6 Mt Kuring-Gai – Crosslands – Berowra.

To register for the walk, or to get more information, contact Kit Craig on 0411 507 422 or at cartophiles@stjohnswahroonga.org

Our beginning was not auspicious. We met at the East Balmain Wharf and took the ferry to Darling Harbour, where we were to catch the connecting ferry to Huntley’s Point.  Although we arrived at Darling Harbour on time our berth was occupied, so we sat idle off the wharf long enough to watch our connecting ferry sail away up the Parramatta River.  This gave us an unplanned hour to find a coffee shop in Darling Harbour while we rang Trent, who was meeting us in Gladesville.

Trent & Annie climb Gladesville Bridge

Eventually we were all together in Huntley’s Point, of which the walk historical notes says, “With one and a bit roads and 270 degrees of water views, it must be Sydney’s smallest and most exclusive suburb.”

We followed the water around to Gladesville Bridge, past the 1884 footings of the original bridge.  Chatting was in full flight as the Cartophiles climbed what was once the largest single span concrete arch in the world .  We stopped to enjoy view before descending to Drummoyne and following the water around to Birkenhead Point.  Although we’d originally planned lunch in Balmain, our late start made Birkenhead Point a better lunch stop.

Rachel and Tertius left us at Birkenhead, bt the rest of the group crossed the Iron Cove Bridge and entered Rozelle.

The Rozelle-Balmain-Birchgrove waterfronts are a landscape of intense change. Hardly more than a few metres have not been reclaimed, altered or built on, often several times. A few decades ago walking these shores would have been impossible because of the dozens of shipyards, slipways, wharves, oil stores, factories, and power plants sitting cheek-to-cheek along the waterfront. From the 1850s to the 1970s, this peninsula was one of the most industrialised areas in Australia.

No longer industrial - entering Balmain

But not today.  We walked past the Balmain Shores apartment complex to the 1934 waterfront pump house which is all that remains of the Balmain Power Station which occupied the site until 1998.  Just past here a plaque told us that the next apartment complex occupies the site of Australia’s first chemical plant, opened in 1866 by Frederick & James Elliot.

In fact, ‘first’ and ‘oldest’ are terms that Balmain seems to have cornered.  The historical notes pointed out that Balmain has the oldest remaining rowing club (1882); the oldest swimming pool and swimming club (1883); the oldest district cricket club (1897); the oldest Bowling Club (1879); and was the co-birthplace of Rugby League Football in 1908.  The annual Balmain Regatta is claimed to be the oldest in Australia.  We would get to walk past places related to most of these.

We passed Balmain Campus of Sydney Secondary College (formerly Balmain High) and some lovely mid-19th century houses until in Elliot Street we came to the first of many 1950s blocks of  Housing Commission apartments. The waterside park in front of these, with million dollar harbour views, was used by boat builders in the 1880s.  Not long after this we passed the historic Balmain Rowing Club to Elkington Park.

White Horse Point in the park has great views of Snapper, Spectacle and Cockatoo Islands.  I knew of Cockatoo Island’s industrial and shipbuilding history, but didn’t know that it had also been a convict prison from 1838.  Only one prisoner ever escaped: the famous bushranger ‘Captain Thunderbolt’, Frederick Ward, who swam to freedom in 1863 and probably landed in Elkington Park.

James outside the former Bandidos bikie gang HQ

From Elkington Park we walked behind the former Balmain Pool, now known as Dawn Fraser Pool because this is where she learned to swim, and entered Birchgrove. We followed streets lined with a lovely mix of Victorian and modern houses and climbed to a new townhouse development on the site of the Balmain Coal Mine, once the deepest coal mine in Australia.  Soon we came to Louisa Road, where most of the group decided to wait at Birchgrove Park while James & Kit pushed on to Yurulbin (formerly Long Nose) Point.  Overlooking the park at the point is the last house in Louisa Road, a beautiful Queen Anne style home built in 1897, most famous for being the 1980s headquarters of the Bandido bikie gang. The Bandidos were evicted in the mid 80s after the ‘Milperra Massacre’.

Sue came and fetched James & Kit to rejoin the group at Snails Bay, opposite the delightful Birchgrove Park.  The park was started in 1882 and finished with a tennis pavilion and cricket & football grandstand by 1904.   On 20 April 1908 it was the site of two of the new Rugby League’s first four games.  A couple of decades later, an attendance record for a suburban oval was set when Donald Bradman batted there for St George against Balmain.

From here to Ballast Point was a series of absolutely beautiful houses from the mid- to late-nineteenth century.  Ballast Point Park has rock retaining walls held together with arc mesh, and lovers have begun securing padlocks engraved with their names to the mesh and throwing the keys into the harbour.  As we arrived a young couple had just finished securing their padlock there because he had proposed to her at that spot the previous week.

We continued on around Morts Bay, where the outline of the filled in 1861 dry dock can clearly be seen, and past the Sydney Ferries Balmain

Sue, Andrew and "The Coathanger"

Shipyard, which includes Balmain’s last surviving dry dock.  At the former Colgate Palmolive plant we left the prescribed route to follow the beach around, which included climbing a sandstone sea wall. The Colgate Palmolive plant opened in 1923, but was converted into apartments after the plant closed in 1993-94.

We were nearly finished. We passed the extraordinary sandstone structure of Nicholson Street Public School, built in 1883 in a free classical design and the alma mater of Neville Wran, and walked down the Zig Zag walkway, where casual workers would queue from 1900 onwards hoping for daily work at the Adelaide Steamship works. The arts and craft studios and small businesses on Waterview Wharf occupy the last remaining original maritime industrial buildings on Morts Bay.

We were very close to Andrew’s home, so we let him lead us through back streets and parks towards the East Balmain Ferry Wharf.  Kit and Annie staged a brave but foolish race up the very steep climb towards Darling Street.  We finally finished, after about 5 hours, back at the Balmain East Wharf, which has been the main Balmain wharf since the 1840s.  Full of excitement and enthusiasm after a walk full of history and interest we retired to the beer garden in the Commercial Hotel to revisit the many wonderful things we had seen.

The next Cartophiles walk is the gorgeous Lyrebird Gully walk from Mt Kuring-Gai to Crosslands Reserve on 19th May.

But Jerusalem, in the days of Jesus, did not belong to the Jewish people. As Jews came to the Temple they could not miss the watchtower, the Roman military building built to overlook the Temple, to watch over the holy places of the Jewish faith. As the faithful entered to worship, they could see Roman soldiers looking down upon them. Resentment against the Roman occupiers ran high, and the Jewish revolutionary zealots found in this resentment an ideal opportunity to recruit for their cause.

For Passover was a religious festival, but it was more than that. At Passover the Jews celebrated the event which had defined them as a people; God setting them freedom from slavery in Egypt. Passover was not just a celebration of the Jewish religion, but of being set free from oppression; set free by an unlikely leader and the hand of God. And there were many who longed for the same to happen again – for freedom, this time from Rome.

And the Roman authorities were well aware of this – of the meaning of Passover, of the political implications, of the stories of the people being set free from oppression. And they had no hesitation in stepping in to crush even a hint of rebellion.

Now add to the political tension, another layer. Human nature being what it was, Passover was also a commercial opportunity. Animals had to be purchased for sacrifice, money had to be changed (because Roman currency was not acceptable for offering at the Temple), rooms and meals had to be purchased – and there will always be those who are ready to provide these services at a healthy profit.

Put together the massive crowds, the political tension, and the money involved – and the city of Jerusalem at Passover was a tinderbox – a mass of frustration, and resentment, with sporadic violence and, never far from the surface, the possibility of riot.

It is into this city that Jesus rides to cries of “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the king of Israel”. There can be no doubt that many of those shouting these words see in Jesus the political and military solution to their problems; a man who has built up a following, who has spoken of a kingdom, and who has now come to Jerusalem, the heart of political and religious power.

Today, Palm Sunday, marks the height of Jesus’ earthly power. He has the people behind him, everyone is hanging off his every word. His opponents don’t even dare to challenge him openly, but seek to find him out of sight of the crowds. If there was ever a moment when the temptation to take power came to the fore for Jesus, this was surely it. All it would take was a little bit of political manuevering, some well chosen compliments to get the temple on side – surely not beyond a man of his eloquence and grasp of human nature – and all of Jerusalem would be his to command. He just had to, figuratively speaking, exchange his donkey for a horse, and the kingdom of Israel was his for the taking.

A week later, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus would plead with his Father to find another way. Today, Palm Sunday, there is another way. Today he has the choice.

The next day he would start the sequence of events that will lead inexorably to his death.

He will preach against the religious leaders of the day in parables that they know to be directed at them. And he will throw the money-changers out of the temple, rejecting all the commerce that has been layered on top of faith in God – the house of prayer turned into a den of robbers. In doing so he will finally turn the priests irrevocably against him.

And in the same action, performed under the eyes of the Romans, he will cause a public disturbance at the heart of the festivities, the one thing above all the authorities want to prevent.

In one act, Jesus would turn the two powers in Jerusalem, religious and military, against himself, knowing, surely, where it would end.
Right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry he was been challenged with the temptation to take a different path. In the story of the temptation in the wilderness, he was offered all the kingdoms of the earth in return for worshipping his enemy. Whatever you make of that story, as a literery device, a figure of speech, or a historical happening, here we have the same temptation in a very literal, physical form. Take the crown. Make the kingdom happen.
Here and now.

But he doesn’t.

He chooses the other way.

Because that wasn’t the sort of kingdom that he came to build.

Because the kingdom he proclaimed could never be born through politics, through popular acclaim, or through violence.

Not so much “the medium is the message” here, as “the method is the message”

The way Jesus acted to bring his Kingdom into being would define what sort of kingdom it would be.

And everything he had spoken, everything he had taught, everything he had worked for, said that this kingdom was not a place in which power came from a willingness to take it at any cost.

This was – this is – a kingdom of integrity.

A kingdom in which greatness was seen in the service of other.

A kingdom of sacrifice, in which even the king would willingly give himself for others.

A kingdom belonging to the children, to those with little voice and less power.

A kingdom open to misfits, rebels, foreigners, traitors, sinners.

A kingdom in which your value does not derive from your ability to contribute, but simply from being part of God’s good creation.

A kingdom in which love, not law, is to be the highest standard.

As Christians in the twenty first century we live in a world which teaches us that the end justifies the means, that results matter, outcomes are the measure of our actions, our organisations, our programs.

And the challenge we face, in this sense at least, is the same as Jesus faced. To say no to that zeitgeist, that spirit of the age. To say that while we work towards goals that we care passionately about, goals which we believe will truly make a difference in the lives of others; while we work for our vision of the Kingdom of God here in Wahroonga, we will work in ways which are consistent with the values of that kingdom.

That when we find ourselves in disagreement with others within our community, we will make reconciliation a priority over progress; because forgiveness, and living reconciled lives with one another, is the work if the kingdom.

That how we treat those who are difficult, those who make it hard for us to do the things we feel called to, matters.

That all our work for the things of God will be done with unimpeachable integrity, whether it be done in public or behind closed doors.

That we will happily work with others, whether or not they worship within walls or share our faith – for the kingdom of God has open borders.

That we will conduct our affairs in a way characterised by transparency, fairness, openness to all; that while we value efficiency, we do not worship it.

It might not be the way to run a great business, or to build a mega Church, or to gain and use political power or influence.

But the kingdom of God is built by on the backs of donkeys, not horses.

Amen

At Waterfall Station

We met at Redfern Station and caught the train to Waterfall.  There’s a magical excitement in catching a train to a hike; a feeling of shared adventure and derring do that had us all primed by the time we arrived.

The first part of the walk was along streets, till we entered the park on the Bullawarring Track and started to negotiate puddles and small streams all across the track.  The timber and stone steps down the first steep descent were a flowing cascade and in several places we had to leave the track to find dry footing.

Sue and Kit had done the walk before, but the track was less obvious after all the rain.  Boggy hollows and the occasional fallen tree obscured the track, and in places rushing flood water had cleared strips of ground so that they looked like well-used paths.  Eventually we came to a place where a tree had fallen across the creek, tearing out a chunk of the bank and making the creek crossing very difficult.  After struggling across the creek we found ourselves in a tangle of deadfall, but scrabbling out of it we followed the track downhill to a smaller creek crossing … where the track stopped!

We had been fooled by one of the cleared waterways.  We backtracked, crossed the creek again and found the main track hidden behind the

Sue & Michael help Gabriel over a rushing creek

same fallen tree that had torn up the creek bank.  A lasting memory will be Sue’s impressive swan dive as she crossed the creek, halted by her foot being tangled in the tree roots and Michael’s quick grab at her sleeve.

The track continued to be a stream as we made our way to Kingfisher Pool and lunch.  The footing was often treacherous as the water flowing over many of the rocks on the path formed mini water slides.  Even tiny rivulets were running knee deep, and the main creek crossing after Kingfisher Pool involved hopping from islet to islet between foaming chutes.

The track climbed the hill on the other side of the creek and then ran parallel to it through thick bush.  The weather was sunny and mild, but the wet trees and close scrub meant that visibility was poor as we had to push branches out of our faces all the time.  It was especially difficult for the shorter members of our crew, Gabriel and Sue, who could rarely see more than a few feet.  We soon grew hot and sweaty, but to his credit Gabriel never faltered or complained.  Progress was slowed further when Kit wore a banksia leaf in his left eye, which meant bandaging it with gauze so that he could keep leading the trek.  His monocular vision was to soon take centre stage.

Pushing through the thick scrub

We finally broke out of the scrub and onto the paved Pipeline Track, where it crosses Heathcote Creek at the Battery Causeway.  The swollen creek covered about ten metres of the causeway with rapidly flowing water that had, in places, torn up the road surface.  The two men, Michael and Kit, decided to wade through the flow first, drop their packs on the other side, and then come back to help Gabriel and Sue across.  They doffed their boots and entered the stream.  As they crossed, one-eyed Kit didn’t see the hole that he was about to step into until his right leg went from knee deep water to thigh deep in a single pace.  It was an impressive way to reinforce the lessons he’d given Gabriel about packing the contents of the backpack in waterproof bags!

The only damage was to Kit’s ego, and Sue and Gabriel soon made their way across with no further incident.  We pushed on the last kilometre or so to the camping ground at Mirang Pool.  This spot is known for its lovely sandy beach tent sites and serene pool.  Normally.

We descended the steps to the camping ground to be faced with a scene of devastation.  The previous week’s floods had swept through the trees alongside the creek and left a metre deep layer of fallen timber and flood wrack.  There was no space for a tent, and no way to get across the rushing creek to look for an alternative.  We climbed back up the steps and went back along the track until we came to a picnic table we’d seen earlier, that had enough flat ground around it for two tents.

Our spirits were quite high as we made camp.  Despite tough walking conditions we’d arrived happy and safe; we had a comfortable – although unconventional – campsite; the walking for the rest of the hike would be easy.  Gabriel had remained happy and upbeat and had faced all the difficulties with aplomb.  After dinner and a drop of therapeutic red wine we slept the sleep of the righteous.

We awoke the next day to the sounds of runners and mountain bike riders pushing uphill past our impromptu campsite: this is obviously a popular exercise track for the Shire’s more athletic citizens.  Knowing the rest of the walk was only a few kilometres we had a leisurely breakfast and struck camp quite late.  We entered Heathcote via the Scout Training Camp, and had a short diversion to look at the memorial outdoor chapel in the complex.  We finished with a refreshment break at the Heathcote Hotel – including a hot chocolate for Gabriel – before catching the train home again.

Sue’s final comment was, “A beginners walk? Ha!”

Our next scheduled overnight hike is on the weekend 25th/26th August from Mountain Lagoon to Colo River & return.  Our next day walk  is on the Harbour Circle Walk from Gladesville to Balmain on 21st April.