I guess my New Year’s resolution should be to write more regularly. We are just about done here. I expect this will be our last note. We hope to hear from all of you over the coming weeks. Just let us know how you are doing. Thank you.
Victoria cont’d
Our last note ended in Lakes Entrance near the border between Victoria and New South Wales. We headed inland from there on the Great Alpine Road to explore some of the mountainous regions. Many of these regions are ski areas in winter. While there, Liane and I developed a theory that Australia ends at 1000 meters altitude. Above that all maps should just show a great fog of uncertainty and the legend “Here Be Monsters.” The fog made the driving very challenging but we survived (although I think the brakes on the van lost a month’s life in a day).
As a bit of a break, we took a half day underground at the Buchan caves (the first of two sets of caves on this trip).
New South Wales
We entered New South Wales through the inland roads, after discarding half our food due to quarantine regulations. We promptly made our way back to the coast, which we both love. We spent a couple of days in Merimbula and then headed to Jervis Bay before finally stopping for most of a week in Gerroa at Seven Mile Beach. Gerroa is just a nice quiet place where we sat around and did nothing. The highlight was watching the pelicans from the best site in the campground.
After our rest, we headed for the region that was the land-based highlight of our previous visit to Australia – the Blue Mountains just west of Sydney. The Blue Mountains are a national park region containing a large escarpment with many waterfalls and walking trails.
The scene below is typical of the Blue Mountains. If you look closely at the right hand edge you can see the blueness for which the mountains are named. It is caused by oils released into the atmosphere by the eucalyptus trees.
Our personal favourite hike is called National Pass. We liked it so much we did it twice on this trip. It starts with a long stair climb down beside the Empress Falls.
While it seems like you are climbing a long way, most of the falls are still below you as the track follows a path halfway down the cliff face. In the first Blue Mountains picture, the path is in the band of greenery part way down the cliff. Here is a shot from the trail.
The path leads across the face of the escarpment and encounters many small waterfalls. After an hour or so, it reaches Wentworth Falls.
From Wentworth Falls, one climbs many stairs upward to the end of the National Pass. Then there is an almost equally beautiful “Undercliff/Overcliff Walk” along the edge of the cliff to get back to the cafe for a well earned snack. We spent five days driving and walking in the Blue Mountains. I’ve had a couple of people ask “What are the must-do things in Australia?” National Pass makes my list.
Seeing the “Three Sisters” rock formation is, for some, synonymous with visiting the Blue Mountains so I’ll include a picture here. There are constant bus tours past this viewing point. I have to say that almost any of the hikes offer views that are equally impressive.
This time also included our second cave touring day which we spent at Jenolan Caves on the western edge of the Blue Mountains.
I’d like to add that the drive in to Jenolan in the camper van had some of the more exciting moments of our trip. It has a couple of switchback turns that are simultaneously sharp enough and steep enough that I was concerned the van might tip without leaving the road.
After spending our time in the Blue Mountains we headed back toward Wollongong where we spent Christmas, New Years and the last couple of weeks of our trip. Wollongong has been a quiet time for us. In part, the weather has not been friendly to outdoor activities. Also, on the first day I did decide to go swimming, I got stung by a Blue Bottle jelly fish. The rest of the world calls these the Portuguese Man O’War. Fortunately it was a small sting but it still made me ill for half a day. Nasty creature. We read in the paper that they closed the beaches later that day due to the large number of stings occuring.
We’ve also had a good day in Sydney where we walked the main tourist area around Circular Quay including views of the Coat Hanger bridge and the Opera House. We hope our last couple of days here will include some more swimming, without the jellyfish, and another trip or two to Sydney.
In terms of the weather, we are well outside the flood regions of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales. The pictures coming out of that region are shocking though. Whole towns are just floating away. The official word is that it is only going to get worse. In our region, the main impact has been trouble buying things like tropical fruit because the farms, the transportation, or both, are under water.
We are flying back to Canada next week to visit with family and get some skiing in. We’ve had a great time here and are looking forward to future trips. As I said above, please do mail us and let us know how things are going.
Oh yeah, the hair did eventually get chopped.