Friday 23 May 2008

Beach Driving at Stockton Beach and on to Tamworth via Stroud and Gloucester (not the A46)

Finally I am writing with my shorts and "singlet" on, plus the sun is shining on the tent and there is country music on the radio (explanation below).  Damn rain - anyone would think this was Australia we are driving round wouldn't they?  Well sometimes it does not feel like it we have been so wet.  But today it does. 

We are in the Country Music Capital of Australia "Tamworth" in NSW (still).  It's 600kms North West of Sydney and about 500kms South West of Brisbane.  Quite outback in style, but large enough to have all the shops we need.  Tonight we might head out to soak up some country sounds with a Tooheys or two.  Now I know I don't know much about music, and less about country music, but out here is does just sound....right!

To get here we have had a fantastic few days, with a fair few kms but a lot of good sights to enhance the journey.  When we left Soldiers Point the first thing we did was some beach driving all the way down Stockton Beach, past a shipwreck and then looped back round to head up to Wallingat National Park.  Stockton Beach was very long, very windy, but great fun for someone who hasn't driven on the beach for a fair few years - and this was something else altogether!  The sand was very loose and quite deep at times, both cars did well considering how loaded up we are, but I think we all crapped ourselves a few times when either the cars felt like they were going to roll or (for me) I thought we were properly stuck in a tricky dune when we were trying to find the way out!  After a few attempts neither me or Paul could make it to the top of this dune, but you can see how deep and loose the sand is:

P1060166

Great fun all round as you can see from the smiles on our faces!

P1060189

Nick - a dead shark we spotted on Stockton, just for you:

P1060182

After Stockton we headed on a tourist trail which took us through Stroud and Gloucester, we were so chuffed by being in the replica of the Cotswolds we did a full-on tourist picture:

P1060221

Apparently an agriculture company founded the town and simply named it because of the area's similarity to the Cotswolds.  To us it was green and the hills were rolling, but apart from that it was most definitely Australian.  The same went for Gloucester although we did have a nice pie and chips there.

Barrington Tops National Park is listed as World Heritage status for it's rainforest area (along with many others up the coast of Australia), and it was definitely beautiful, but cold and quite similar to the Snowy's so we didn't linger long - although for the avid bird watchers out there (you know who you are, or is it just me?) we did see a female lyre-bird which are quite rare apparently.

P1060249

We made it to Tamworth by mid afternoon and had a bit of time to dry our stuff in the sun before an early night

Saturday 17 May 2008

Tent vs Cabin

Now don't laugh, but me & Em have just settled down to watch the Vicar of Dibley on TV with a pizza delivery.  Yes, we succumbed after a few wet days in the tent and have splashed out on a cabin in a holiday/caravan park.  Pizza delivery, running + drinkable water from a tap, light switches, hot shower, flushing loo, kitchenette, toaster.....it's amazing, but there is a lot of stuff we take for granted, and after only a couple of weeks of going without them it is noticeable when they are there again!  If anyone is interested I'll post a picture of a "drop-toilet" which is what we mainly use in National Parks but I assure you - even without pictorial evidence - it is a strange feeling walking away from a toilet after a number two without flushing; nobody can ever get used to that surely!

Location update; we are in Soldiers Point near Nelson Bay on the NSW coast approximately 100kms North of Sydney.  Paul & Emily have joined us again after a few days in the city, during which time me and Em explored around Myall Lakes National Park, and very pretty it was too - beach on one side and freshwater lake on the other side.  This is Em on the lakeside showing how flooded it is:

P1060093 

I had my first dingo encounter (Em has seen them before on Fraser Island) at the campsite on Saturday morning (before we left for the cabin):

P1060098

It was tagged and was very wary of us, and the posters on the campsite told us to keep eye contact and back away if they appear.  After I stared it down (and accidentally whistled at it, which it ignored!) it moved on to other pitches where the people had left for the day to scavenge around their rubbish.  A very strange sight indeed and not a dog that I would like to cross - they are big (larger than a retriever) and quite lean, I would imagine they would be pretty nasty when angry.

After me & Em had packed up camp (after drying everything for about 3 hrs in the sun) we decided to get the bikes out and go for a ride to an old fishing village reachable only by boat or walking track; after 20 mins of riding through puddles the track was covered in lake however, so after taking our shoes off and carefully trying to cross the flooded path we tried to get further, but could not as the lake had risen so much, it was fun something different, here is Em getting her feet muddy and wet:

P1060110

And just so you know what backpackers we are being, here is the (free) local wireless internet access from the library where we were checking email and posting to the blog:

P1060084

And a few replies to feedback left recently:

More roadkill/oceankill pics will be posted as soon as available.  Glad you enjoyed them - I was well chuffed we got to see a seal being nibbled on at the end of a such a pleasant ramble to the headland!

No photos of uprooted signpost are available as I am embarrassed about the incident, but my excuse is it had been a long day of driving ;-)

And finally I will be shaving tonight so don't worry - the ginger beard will be more under control by the next post......

Friday 16 May 2008

NSW...Still

This is a big state - not the biggest - and we are still in it, even after a mammoth drive yesterday. 

I am writing this from our campsite "Mungo Brush" in Port Stephens/Myall Lakes area.  We have had our 2nd night running of waking up to a very wet tent unfortunately; since leaving the Blue Mountains/Jenolan Caves area we spent a night in the mountains, not expecting to wake up to a frosty temperature of 2 degrees and a thick fog, and for our first night in Myall Lakes it rained for most of the night....so we are drying the tent as I write this and will then pop to the local library in Tea Gardens (that's the name of the town) to upload it.

Paul and Emily are visiting friends and family in Sydney so me and Em did a lot of driving yesterday from the Blue Mountains area to get back to the coast hoping it would be drier and warmer (which it is the latter most definitely).  We captured these town names on the way through the Barrington Tops area, hopefully we will drive back through on our way to Tamworth to see if they are really like their namesakes!

P1060078

Before a brief visit to Barrington Tops we also did the tourist thing to reputedly the oldest cave system in the world called "Jenolan Caves".  For all budding geologists the rock in that area has been dated back to 430 million years ago, and some sediment from the cave floors has been dated to 340 million years ago.  I don't reckon Wookey Hole can beat that, but its a long time since I have been there, so feel free to let me know if I am wrong.  Anyway Jenolan was worth the narrow, winding roads to get there.  Cave pictures dont come out too well on camera, but here is one to give you the idea, it took an hour and a half to wander around on the tour so I have a lot of blurry pictures if anyone is really interested:

P1060017

Going back in time again our Blue Mountains visit was also memorable: we did a walk around Wentworth Falls which was peppered with path closures for safety renovations, and at one (unmarked on the map!) said site, it was closed for a further 30 minutes when we got there, so we waited for the workmen to let us through with a handful of other tourists, when a thunderstorm opened up above what felt like directly over our heads.  It was quite an experience feeling the thunder when we were perched on a path between the mountains.  Once we were through the site we ascended back to the car park through a few little waterfalls safe and sound, but wet.  Here we are with Wentworth Falls behind us - they were quite beautiful from below:

IMG_4898

Overall we are having a great time, the car is doing ok (although I had a small argument with a signpost last night when reversing - luckily my bullbar backed me up and the signpost lost the argument), we are doing ok, not missing work in the slightest, loving all the little experiences that make up a good holiday and hoping the rain stays away.  And thanks for all your comments and emails about the blog, they are being read with pleasure (and some homesickness) when we get internet access!

Sunday 11 May 2008

NSW South Coast Continued - Booderee National Park

We are still on the NSW coast.  We've been camped up for 4 days in Booderee National Park which is in the Jervis Bay area.  Before there we spent one night at Depot Beach, which wasn't much cop so we pressed on to Jervis Bay.  The park is not too big, not too small, and the beaches are stunning:

P1040812

It has been interesting for a number of other reasons too, namely:

It's home to the Royal Australian Navy's Survival and Ship Safety School, so we got to see some squaddies out on manouvres (actually they were at the historic lighthouse taking a tea break I reckon):

P1040869

We saw a dead seal being pecked at by something (probably a shark, I dont know what sort - also Paul caught two sharks in about 20 minutes on the beach near our campgound - only a little banjo and some sort of funny shovel nosed one we weren't sure about!):

P1040937

And too much other fun stuff like a kookaburra swooping a piece of cheese out of Em's and Emily's hands....possum's that dont know when to back off and one that nearly pissed on me as it ran up a tree when I chased it off....etc etc. 

Here is a picture of Em at Governor's Head with Bowen Island in the background:

P1040843

Thursday 8 May 2008

NSW South Coast - Mimosa Rocks National Park

After a very relaxing week in the Snowy's we all felt recharged enough to move on...so since leaving Anglers Reach on Sunday 4th May we have been slowly making our way up the South coast of New South Wales.  And very pretty it is too.  Bega is a nationally famous cheese so we stopped in to the namesake town for a bit of tasting, including fudge and a fascinating museum about the history of the area and cheese making.

From there we have been camping next to the beach in a spot about 20kms North of Bega, at Gillards Beach near Tathra.  I would like to list all the native animals we have seen since being here, but it would go on for a while; so I'll limit the birds as I think I am the only one that's interested anyway:

Sea eagle, whipbird, bellbird, oystercatcher, wattlebird, pelican, black cockatoo.

P1040757

P1040732

Then the marine life:

Stingrays - they were sweeping up the ocean floor beneath Tathra pier (you can just mae him out in the pic below, they were huge!), and dolphins - they swam through the surf about 20 feet away from us as we were taking a dip in the ocean!

P1040735

And the marsupials that gather round the campfire with us at the end of the day:

Swamp wallaby (first pic below), eastern grey kangaroo (second pic below), bandicoot, poteroo and a bush rat/mouse called Gary that wanted to make a new home in Paul & Emily's camper bed!

P1040734

P1040724