For Brisbane and Dalby in Queensland, please scroll
down and down and down!
Stop when you get to a stormy sky at Arrawarra!
I mistakenly added to this Pambula Beach post
instead of creating a new one!
Didn't realise until I'd finished 😱😒 I’m still learning!
NSW ~ May 27 ~ June 19
Pambula Beach ~ May 27 - 30
Fortunately Pambula Beach Holiday Park could take us a day earlier than planned which was quite lucky as we were to discover along the way. We’d been advised to book ahead wherever we went particularly during school holidays. We had done this fairly well usually a week or two ahead but the disadvantage of this was we could not spontaneously decide we’d like to stay on at a place we fancied.
We stopped off at Eden on the way and found a great whale watching viewing platform.
No whales but a lovely spot
On the way we came across a beautiful memorial to sailors lost at sea and in particular the Shiralee Memorial Wall which commemorates the loss of all sailors on the trawler, Shiralee in 1978. The wall was constructed also as a memorial to all seamen who had sailed from Eden and were lost at sea and whose bodies were not recovered. A number of individual memorial plaques are also attached to the wall.
Pambula Beach is beautiful. We sent a lot of our time walking along the beach and enjoying the fresh air.
Freedom at Pambula Beach after escaping Victoria’s fourth lockdown by the skin of our teeth.
One of the days we ventured up to Tathra to visit my cousin Peter Crooks and his wife Diane who live at Bemboka. We had a great meal at the Tathra Hotel. We only re-united a couple of years ago after about 40 years!!! It was lovely to spend some time with them.
Louise, Peter, Laurie and Diane all rugged up at Tathra.
The beach at Tathra is as beautiful as Pambula Beach with the added attraction of thundering waves on rocks.
The wildlife at the park is very laid back. This rainbow lorikeet was quite cheeky coming right up to us sitting outside our van.. We didn’t feed him. The kangaroos were equally relaxed and totally unfazed by anyone.
One of our few little drives to explore the area found us at Merimbula Main Beach.
A storm approaches. - rugged up and walking along the Merimbula Main Beach
Further north at Bate Haven are the two islands named Toll Gate Islands.These islands were named by Surveyor Hoddle in 1827. It is now a nature reserve run by NSW National Parks.
Ulladulla ~ May 31 - June 1
Next stop Ulladulla - the waves rolling in looked like a surfer’s paradise.
We found these beautiful wild flowers in the scrub on a walk to one of the beaches
Warden Head Lighthouse near Ulladulla
Part of the fishing fleet at Ulladulla
Laurie’s mum and step dad used to love going for summer holidays to Mollymook which is a beach just to the north of Ulladulla so we thought we’d drive up to see. We now know why they loved it.
The settlement of Mollymook and below: the beach
A little further north from Mollymook is the Narrawallee Nature Reserve where there’s a beautiful walk around the inlet and through a bangalay sand forest. Super easy walk and quite lovely. The bangalay trees are important because their roots hold the sand dunes from drifting.
The mangroves also hold the sand
The well defined path was easy to follow. In the middle of the bush was a mini
‘village’ of gnomes and elves.
Kiama ~ June 2 - 4
We continued our journey north on the beautiful beaches of New South Wales. I’d read about the Blowhole at Kiama so off we went. This time we stayed at Easts Beach Big Four Park which is in a beautiful setting in a valley. We were lucky enough to be allocated a beach front site.
The Kiama Blowhole is the largest in the world rising to 30 metres when the swell is running from the south east. It was still pretty impressive when we saw it over several days. It was very noisy too. Kiama has been recorded as meaning ‘when the sea makes a noise’. In random places there were beautiful flowers.
This pig face succulent below was thriving in very ordinary sandy soil. The banksia was very attractive to the bees.
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We went on many walks - one near Bombo Beach. There was an old quarry, left in a very dodgy way. The rocks there was appealing to a chap who was setting up to do some repelling down the cliff.
On our walk at Bombo it was a surprise to find this young seal sun baking on a rock that was many, many metres above the high tide mark.
Our next walk was at Jamberoo inland a bit from the coast in the Minnamurra Falls Rainforest.
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This little treasure, a lyrebird, was scratching around in the bark totally ignoring us.
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Our final walk on this site was along the cliff tops above the caravan park.
We were treated to this amazing sunset reflecting on the clouds opposite.
Umina ~ June 5 - 8
We did not want to travel through Sydney with the caravan behind us so we did some research with friends and the consensus was to pick up the M1 from Kiama and then follow the signs to the M7. It was interesting because for a very short distance before the M7 signs appeared on the freeway it changed its name to the M5. Happily it changed again this time to the M7 which took us north and around Blacktown. Heading east it changed to the M2. During this trip we travelled through the North Connex which is quite different to any tunnels in Melbourne. We then headed north through to Mooney Mooney on the M1 or the Pacific Motorway as it is named then.
The North Connex, which extends for nine kilometres opened in October 2020 so was sparkling clean!!
Tollways in Sydney categorise a car and caravan as a truck so it was quite expensive.
The trip around Sydney cost us $66. If you’re a NSW resident it would have been $22!
We checked in to the Umina Ocean Beach Holiday Park and again were pleasantly surprised at our site just one row back from the beach and on the end of the row so very accessible to the water.
Our reward at the half way point of our six kilometre walk along the beach was this lovely scene.
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An early visitor to our camp site was this Noisy Mynah who perched on the power outlet. Then this Australian Bush Turkey came to check us out. They have the weirdest tail which is vertical instead of how you would expect it to be - horizontal.
Umina is on a peninsula south of WoyWoy with the Hawkesbury River running along the south end of it flowing into Broken Bay. Most of the peninsula is covered by the Brisbane Water National Park. It’s a beautiful part of the world. We’d heard about pelican feeding at Woy Woy so thought we’d have a look. It turns out the local fish and chip shop saves the offcuts from preparing the fish and then feeds it to the pelicans. It was amazing to see these magnificent birds up close and in such numbers.
Some of the pelicans waiting patiently on the roof of the fish shop at Woy Woy
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Pick me, pick me |
They are such huge birds they look like jumbo jets when they take off
We enjoyed the public ferry trip from Woy Woy to Empire Bay and back which gave us the opportunity to see beyond the tourism hype of the town.
The ferry trip stopped at each of Veteran’s Hall, Lintern St, Davistown and Empire Bay
We also drove to Patonga in the national park where there are some great walks and found another very scenic beach and town.
Port Macquarie ~ June 9 - 15
Friends had suggested we spend some time at Port Macquarie and we weren’t disappointed. Also recommended was Breakwall Holiday Park which had good reviews so that was home for a week. We’d booked well ahead because of the pressure on accommodation at this time.
Breakwall Holiday Park started filling up during the day we arrived.
We were so pleased we booked well ahead.
There were so many caravans on the road it was incredible. At one point we decided to do a count. We counted 150 vans in two hours - and they were just those travelling in the opposite direction.
The breakwall has very large rocks holding back the ravages of the sea. The rocks have been creatively decorated by years of graffiti artists. Many are memorials to lost loved ones, a surprising number of males in the 20s and low 30s. Others commemorate their family’s annual visits to the park. This one is one of the more artistic efforts. The tradition was started in 1995 as an art competition.
On the Port Macquarie foreshore is a sculpture of a decomposing shark! The sculpture, named The Decomporsi, was created in 2018 at a masterclass led by internationally renowned artist, designer, and teacher Roberto Giordani. The sculpture was forged by his love of the ocean and his appreciation of its delicate ecosystem, while alluding to his frustration towards the pollution of our seas and the culling of our sea life.
The Decomporsi - a decomposing shark!
The Port Macquarie foreshore is very picturesque
A lot of people fish from the breakwall. This chap was surprised to pull this in and had no idea what it was. Ms Google helped. It’s a southern fiddler ray and is usually found on the southern coast of Australia between WA and Tasmania. Not usually found on the east coast. The fisherman gently put him back in the water.
We were keen to walk to Rawson Falls and eventually found how to access it. It was a huge walk down a long way through a rainforest But the effort was worth it because the forest we walked through was amazing. It was a wow of a walk. My little health app said we’d climbed the equivalent of 26 floors even though it was only seven kms there and back!!
At the base of this enormous fig is Laurie, quite dwarfed by its size.
Plank buttresses - again enormous.
After returning from the strenuous trek into the falls we discovered there were even better falls nearby called the Ellenborough Falls at Elands. Alas we didn’t have the energy for another walk - there are 641 steps down to these falls - and of course 641 steps back up! Definitely a trek for another visit.
A visit to the Koala Hospital at Port Macquarie was a pretty informative experience. This rehabilitation hospital focusses on wildlife rehabilitation scientific research and is an education centre. It is a popular tourist attraction. Most of the koalas we saw were ‘permanent residents’ because they cannot be returned to the wild due to their injuries. They are all named and have their story displayed on their enclosures.
This little one is called Ocean Summer and is blind due the brain injury acquired when her mother was killed on the road. Her joey was thrown into a gutter and weighed only one kilogram. Raised by the carers Ocean Summer copes quite well in the safe environment of the hospital, despite her blindness.
A yacht motors up the Hastings River into Port Macquarie at sunset
The nearby Tacking Point Lighthouse was another point of interest for us. It is from here that keen whale watchers spend hours just waiting for the moment they can capture on their cameras and in their memories.
Matthew Flinders set out from Port Jackson in Sydney, in December 1801 with orders to map the coastline of Australia in the HMS Investigator. As Flinders travelled north he passed the Three Brothers mountains of the Camden Haven and on July 24, 1802, the Investigator tacked off this point (hence the name Tacking Point). Flinders was intrigued by the area and remarked of it in his diary.
Coffs Harbour ~ Arrawarra ~ June 16 - 19
From Port Macquarie our next stop was a little place called Arrawarra just north of Coffs Harbour. We spent a little time at Coffs as we’d never been. The harbour is lovely and they are doing some great work to improve the walk at the Muttonbird Island Nature Walk.
Picturesque Coffs Harbour
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We thought the wildlife at Umina Beach was friendly but at Darlington Beach Holiday Park they were really relaxed about people staying at their place. This caravan park was probably
the best so far. We stayed four nights there but could easily
have stayed longer.
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Another Australian Bush Turkey looks for scraps, a beautifully marked masked lapwing plover visits us and this young female kangaroo was about two metres from our front step and totally relaxed about us.
A stormy evening on Arrawarra Beach
That’s it from NSW. Next stop The Gap, near Brisbane.
Here’s Queensland....
Off to Brisbane ~ June 20 - 26
Our long awaited visit to my cousin, Gillian and her husband Lionel, finally arrived. We’d headed north along the east coast and found their house quite easily thanks to Google maps!
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| Southbank Brisbane |
There's nothing like having your own personal tour guides to show us their own ‘backyard’. First stop after a lot of catching up was Southbank Parklands. The bougainvillea were spectacular.
We’ve always been a bit partial to river cruises and this visit was no different. It’s a great way to see the city highlights from a more interesting view. Brisbane uses a similar public transport ticketing system to Melbourne, called the Go Card. So off we tootled.
Somewhat larger than Melbourne’s Yarra River - or Birrarung - the Brisbane River runs 344 kms
from its source on Mt Stanley into Moreton Bay
Floating restaurants, both named the Kookaburra Queen
The Gateway Bridge - one of the beautiful bridges which cross the river
One of the mansions on the Brisbane River
A quickly developing storm brews over the Story Bridge, which was named after John Douglas Story, a senior and influential public servant who had advocated strongly for the bridge's construction. It was opened in July 1940 and the toll charge was 6d per motor car
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There are a number of magnificent fig trees in Brisbane’s Eagle Street which have been heritage listed. They were planted in 1889. They are Moreton Bay figs also known as Australian Banyans  A different view of Brisbane from Mt Coot-Tha. My cousin, Gillian and her husband, Lionel Outen. Mt Coot-tha is the highest point near Brisbane at 304 metres above sea level. It is six kilometres to the west of Brisbane and although a suburb of Brisbane it has no residents. The lookout is a very popular tourist attraction with, in normal times, bus loads of visitors. Also in the reserve is the Brisbane Botanic Gardens and also a Planetarium.  Brisbane six kilometres away in the distance from Mt Coot-tha lookout On June 23, three days after our arrival in Brisbane, we heard Sydney had gone into lockdown trying to stem the rising number of cases of COVID 19. Our earlier instinct to stay away from the city was well founded. We felt quite lucky because of our close shave escaping Victoria just before the snap seven-day May 28 lockdown. We'd left Mallacoota on the 27th and arrived across the NSW border at 11 am. We left Brisbane on June 26th and later at our next stop near Dalby we were to learn that Brisbane had entered a snap lockdown too on the 29th. Another lucky escape. Occasionally our mail finds its way to Mansfield in Queensland which turns out to be in Brisbane. So on one of our excursions Lionel took us to the suburb of Mansfield but the only sign we could find was this one. There was no other similarity in any way to our Mansfield!!    Unfortunately the tide was out in a big way, when we visited Sandgate. Its flats extend for a great distance. There's a lovely walk along the water front. The pier is very long and well set up for fishing with fish cleaning benches and taps and some seating plus covered areas along the length of it. There are also plaques of information about the area's history. The park area has toilets, outdoor showers, picnic tables, barbecues, and a playground. It's very popular as it's only half an hour from the city.  Gillian, Laurie and Lionel on the end of the Shorncliffe Pier Near Dalby ~ June 27 - 29 After a fabulous week in Brisbane we had to move, on this time leaving the coast to venture to Dalby. We travelled west from Brisbane to Tawoomba which has an excellent Visitor Information Centre and then north west to Dalby. Matt and Jenny Finch and their boys live there after moving from Merrijig in 2007. Laurie met the family when Matt was head of ag. science at Geelong Grammar School’s Timbertop campus. We were amazed how flat the country around Dalby was. It reminded me of my family’s home country near Pyramid Hill in northern Victoria. We set up the van next to the house without having to do any levelling! Hooked up to power and water and enjoyed a beautiful roast dinner with the family.
During our stay we headed off for a tour of the farm where they mainly grow sorghum, cotton and chickpeas.  Matt, Jenny, and two of their four boys, Jimmy 8 and Tom 7 at Jimbour Homestead. Their other boys, Lachlan 18 and Alex 17 weren't able to be with us on the day. We all travelled to Jimbour Homestead about half an hour north of Dalby to see this beautiful house. This looks like an English manor house blended with a colonial twist. We couldn’t go through the interior of the house as there’d been a performance of opera the day before and organisers were packing up. We were still able to wander the surrounds and enjoy the splendour of the gardens which included magnificent fig trees and a large kitchen garden. The sandstone house was started in 1875 and completed two years later at a cost of £30,000. An enormous sum of money in those days!   Part of the large kitchen garden - partly dormant during winter  The garden is spacious and the fig trees magnificent  Sandstone was obtained from a quarry at Bunjinnie, about six miles from Jimbour House. 10 stonemasons, nine carpenters and a number of labourers were employed in the construction and the total workforce including quarrying, timber getting, carting and handling of materials was around 200. Our day trip included a trip to the Bunya Mountains National Park. The bunya pines, which are the stand out tree, are striking.  This example was located next to the restaurant where we enjoyed lunch   Tom, Matt, Jenny and Jimmy at the Bunya National Park Work on the farm  Eight year old Jimmy grew this whopping pumpkin from two seeds given out by his teacher. He wasn’t here at the time I took this photo of Laurie and Jenny with the giant which weighed 171 kgs. Jimmy entered it in the Royal Queensland Show - Giant Pumpkin Competition. It was his first attempt to grow a giant pumpkin. He easily smashed the youth record which was 64 kgs but alas he was pipped by the 2015 record holder adult, Geoff Frohloff’s of 196 kgs who won the Heaviest Pumpkin of Show in that year.. Jimmy said he only expected to grow a pumpkin about the same size as the ones he's seen in the supermarket. "I watered it, put fertiliser on it and I sang to it," he said.  Jenny and Matt were about to restump their house which is the original one on the farm where Jenny grew up. To do this they had to shift a storage shed which was fascinating to watch. Matt had the machinery needed and together with his brother -in-law the shed was lifted out of the way to make room for the house to be moved at another time.   The sun sets on a previously harvested paddock of sorghum. The sunsets in this country are amazing.  It was time to leave Matt and Jenny’s so we set off for Theodore on our way back to the coast and Rockhampton. Next Off to Rocky.... |
Pretty awesome first trip you two, now you've got the bug! Maz
ReplyDeleteGreat so far Maz. No problems. Stayed ahead of COVID lockdowns which has been pretty awesome. I'd stay in WA if I were you two. xo
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