Trail Running in Lane Cove National Park

The Lane Cove River catchment stretches back through upper north shore suburbs like Thornleigh, Killara, and Lindfield before it reaches the national park, draining a mix of hardened suburban streets and sandstone bushland with shallow soils that hold very little rainfall. That combination makes the river notoriously peaky, it can rise sharply during and immediately after a storm even when the rain has already stopped by the time it reaches Lane Cove itself. A runner checking a clear sky over the park entry gate has no real read on whether the Lane Cove River Trail or the low sections near the weir are still passable, because the water causing the problem may have fallen an hour earlier and several suburbs upstream.

The safest habit after solid rain across the upper north shore is to treat the lowest sections of the park, the Platypus Flat area and the boardwalks near the weir, as closed until proven otherwise rather than assume they have reopened. Because Lane Cove's flood peaks drop away quickly, a section that is impassable at 7am can often be perfectly runnable by early afternoon the same day. Runners who want a guaranteed dry option immediately after rain are better off starting with the Stringybark Creek Loop, which climbs onto higher ridge ground above the valley, rather than heading straight for the flat river-level trails where the water actually collects.

Lane Cove National Park earns its keep on weeknights rather than weekends. The Platypus Flat Loop and Stringybark Creek Loop are both short enough, 6 km and 7 km, to run as an after-work session without needing a half day set aside, and the park's entry off Plassey Road is a short drive from the lower north shore office corridor around Macquarie Park and Chatswood. Runners who only have an hour between finishing work and dinner can park at the tourist park, run one loop, and be back at the car with time to spare, something that is not realistic at the Blue Mountains or Royal National Park without dedicating an entire evening to the drive alone.

Because the park gates close at dusk, the practical planning question on a weeknight is not distance but daylight, working backwards from sunset rather than trying to fit a fixed route. In the longer daylight months this comfortably allows two laps of the Platypus Flat Loop or one lap of the longer Lane Cove River Trail, in winter it often means sticking to a single short loop and starting straight from the car without a warm up walk. This is what makes Lane Cove genuinely useful as a training base rather than a novelty, it is one of the only bush trail networks in Sydney reachable, runnable, and leaveable inside a normal weeknight window.