Geoff and Louise led us on a wonderful walk today in beautiful Royal National Park.

Nine members met at the Garrawarra Farm Carpark for a 10 am departure. After a couple of kilometres (mostly downhill) we came to the Royal Coast Track and followed it even further (still mostly downhill) until we came to Burning Palms Beach. This locality is dotted with quite a number of beach shacks, mostly in good repair but some a little more derelict. At the beachfront was the clubhouse of the Burning Palms Surf Life Saving Club.

Down on the sandy beach there were uncountable pieces of plastic litter among the rocks, shells and seaweed. Some of our group picked up a few pieces to carry out and dispose of properly.

When conditions are favourable, one can walk to the end of the beach, but today the tide was too high and so we took the track up and over the small headland. From the track we could see the well-known Figure Eight Pools, a pool formation on a rock shelf which attracts both the curious and the adventurous. Plenty of signs alert walkers to the dangers of this rock shelf.

Our morning tea and lunch stops were well chosen for their scenic beauty.

There were a number of side tracks leading down to water level again, but we continued up and up until we reached the fire trail which was then easy walking to return to the carpark.

A particular feature of this walk was the dense pockets of Cabbage Tree Palms - in fact a certain section is known as Palm Jungle. In places also the track was densely covered with fallen palm leaves. There were also groves of attractive Gymea lilies.

Geoff identified a range of bird calls as all being made by the one type of bird - that clever mimic - the lyrebird.

There was plenty of mud on the track today, and plenty of steps to negotiate, but no-one was deterred in the slightest. Wonderful weather contributed to an excellent outing.