Every time we are on the northern beaches of Sydney I keep meaning to go back to The Basin in The Ku-Ring-Gai National Park. We used to go there as kids on days out with my uncle's work. It was such fun, we'd hop on a boat all together and head off - there were huge canvas eskys full of dry ice with ice creams - I'm sure there was other food but that's all my young self remembers.
So seeing how we had a spare day on our hands, we decided to take advantage of being so close by and go visit.
It's a short 20 minute or so trip from Palm Beach wharf to The Basin - a lovely little ferry ride... I wish it was a longer one.
The fires had been burning around Sydney and smoke haze filled the air. Only a couple of weeks earlier Barrenjoey had been alight with the lighthouse under threat, so there were restrictions about walking on bush trails.
When we arrived at The Basin, there were warnings to not go on any of the trails due to the fire threats, a police van was on watch for any signs of fire - ready to spring into action.
I'd originally thought I would go on one of the short walks my dad and I had done when I was a kid, but it wasn't to be this time around.
I was taken with the mother's face when she looked at us, it almost had an old man's face look to it, with white beard... I wondered if that was where the 'old man kangaroo' name comes from.
