Sphinx Walking (cough cough) Trail

We did the sphinx walking trail (oops) down the hundred or so stairs 6.5kms to halvorsens then back up the gibberagong waterholes track 5.5kms and cut to north turramurra (instead of up to grovenor st, wahroonga) A bit too much hike a bike involved and didnt realise sphinx was a no go till walkers told us halfway around. was a good day though. the track from north turramurra down to gibberagong could be worth it for a fastish tech downhill, was very cool down under the trees too on a fairly hot day. nice tight trail in some place which was fun but again a lot of hike a bike and scrambling over gaps made it a bit annoying make sure to fill your water in bobbin hd as the water on gibberagong didnt look too good for drinking!

the mangrove boardwalk and sandstone stair area bit was fun too up and over....kind of like some crazy over size north shore!!! but gibberagong was pretty ordinary, it had its good bits...some fast single track by the creek through a ferny grove and over some small fallen tree trunks was super fun, but overall not ideal as a ride track. the waterholes would be worth a swim in summer, provided some fresh rain had fallen! met some old walkers who warned us of what lay ahead, lots of massive rocks to carry your bikes over and steep slippery drops to the creek about 5-6 metres below.

the north turramurra exit point was not marked...i happened to notice a bit of a worn path heading up and at a point somewhere near where lovers jump creek comes into gibberagong creek(about a hundred metres before the stairs up to wahroonga) then we found arrows scratched into rock most of the way up and blue and white police type tape around trees leading up, plus some search area signs ( i think from a few months ago when an old guy went missing from shady acres) then it led us up to the murrua rd firetrail behind the landings development site (which is just where the park entry is) you can then ride around to where you park your car via kirkpatrick st, du faur st, then bobbin hd rd.

i really think the downhill would be a lot of fun then ride on to bobbin hd park and back up the road. there are a fair few cut off tracks on murrua though so it could be easy to not find it from above, from memory going backwards you enter the firetrail/power maintenance rd at murrua rd, ride till the landings are on your right, then a few hundred metres (maybe 1km) you should get to a left fork leading towards hornsby from the powerlines then the next right off that firetrail (i noticed a lot of bike and running shoe prints too if that helps) a gentle grade for 100 metres then follow the A7, A6 etc signs down or the blue/white tape. some good drops but fairly slippery due to lots of pine needles on the ground. as we climbed it i have no idea what its like downhill, only that i kept noting that nothing we climbed (hike a bike style) looks unrideable. hope this helps some one out, i'll post it as a ride story too!
thanks for reading and enjoi the ride!