We’re spoilt for choice when it comes to selecting places to walk in the company of friends and colleagues. Every week there’s somewhere different to go, without having to repeat the same walk twice for perhaps a couple of years or more. So what brings people back to Munibung Hill? As the saying goes: You’ll never, never know if you never, never go.
Many walking groups describe their starting points as being somewhere other than one of the locations noted on the Map and Guide to Walks brochure produced by the Munibung Hill Conservation Society. On this occasion, the Hunter Area Walkabout Club – affectionately dubbed the HAWCs – started from Speers Point Park. The group of six, under the guidance of Colleen Hattam, entered Munibung Hill from Farm Street, walking across the base of the rock face before turning right to climb to Awaba Lookout.
The group then progressed to the north-south ridge walking to the north end. As with all groups who reach this landmark spot, Ocean View Lookout provided the usual magnificent views across the suburbs; looking east to Newcastle and the ocean beyond and looking south across the suburbs of Lakelands and Warners Bay to Lake Macquarie.
This was their halfway mark and a time to re-energise, in preparation for retracing their steps; extending this section of the walk to the far south end – an area known as the Farm Street Reserve – to a spot we’ve named Birabaan Lookout.
The final leg took the group to an exit point between 26 and 28 Farm Street, Speers Point.
Sunday, 8 November 2020 -.Walk stats: 10km, 4 hours, Grade 2-4
Colleen Hattam, is a walks organiser with the Hunter Area Walkabout Club (HAWCs), a bushwalking group that first formed over 50 years ago in 1970. (From MMM Issue 17, April 2021).