Lamington National Park

One of the stops we were most looking forward to on this trip was our one week stay in Queensland's Lamington National Park, located about an hour inland from Surfers Paradise and the Gold Coast. We first came here back in 2005 for a few days and liked it so much that we wanted to spend more time in the area. This time we stayed in an elegant 3 bedroom vacation home overlooking the valley you see below. The hiking trails in this area really are terrific and, when the weather decided to cooperate with several beautiful and sunny days we were out the door pretty quickly to attack some of the trails.



The view from the living room looking out at the lanai. Spectacular...even in the rain that came later in the week.



And the view from the lanai. Great place for a cup of morning coffee or an evening glass of wine.



Since we were at eyeball level with the trees we had lots of visitors...especially in the mornings and evenings, including this Kookaburra who decided to adopt us after the first day, and who roosted in this tree next to the lanai the whole time we were there.



Saw this sign on the road heading up to the house.



And as soon as I walked out onto the lanai once we arrived I looked up and saw this little guy in the tree next to the house. There was also a female with a Joey nearby.




Another frequent visitor - one of a group of Lorikeets that usually stopped by in the evening. The forest around here looks and sounds as if they opened the gates of the aviary at the San Diego zoo and just let all of the exotic birds spill out into the countryside.



Lots of pretty vistas along the trails. The tracks here range from easy half-day walks to multi-day excursions of 40 miles or more.




A photo op along the trail.



On our homeward leg one day we chanced upon this 6 ft. Carpet Python trying to cross the path ahead of us. He looked like a baby compared to the big bruiser we had seen about a week before, but was still big enough to calibrate my startle reflex. It was a standoff for a few minutes - he stopped and we stopped, and each waited for the other to make a move. I finally grew impatient for him to get on with and hit him with a rock which diverted him enough to allow us to pass. A couple of hundred yards up the trail we passed a lady heading the other way, so I warned here about the python just ahead of her. Her response was typical Aussie: "a python, eh? Well, they're harmless" and she proceeded on with barely a break in her stride. A few days later we encountered leeches in one of the boggy places after it rained (had to pick them off our boots and trousers in fact). A bit further up the trail I alerted a group of middle-aged hikers heading the other way that there were leeches ahead (thinking they might appreciate the head's up since they were all wearing shorts) but the bloke's response was "ah, they don't eat much and, besides, they drop off when they've had enough". Gotta love the Aussies...



One of our lunch spots along the Coomera River. (No leeches here).




Different day but another pretty lunch spot along the trail. This pond was full of freshwater crayfish, or Yabbies as they're called here. Most were only about 2 or 3 inches long, but we saw a couple that were the size of small lobster...must have been 5 or 6 inches long.




And here he is. Good eating too, I'm told.

And finally, a chance for you to practice your Aboriginal language skills courtesy of this signboard in one of the nearby forest parks we visited one day.



Here's a better look at the Yabbies in the creek. Must have seen 10 or 12 of them just in this one pond.



Our week here passed much too quickly but we're now headed towards the interior of New South Wales on our way to Adelaide...with enroute stops in the Opal mining town of Lightning Ridge and the Silver mining town of Broken Hill.

Coffs Harbor

Spent Easter weekend in the beachside town of Coffs Harbor - located about halfway between Sydney and Brisbane along the eastern coast of NSW. Although the beaches a little further to the north are a lot better known, this stretch of coastline is about as nice as it gets if you like the beach. We went to a couple over the busiest weekend of the year and pretty much had them all to ourselves.





The place we stayed was this small, self-catering "Queenslander" tucked away in the hills...and up in the jungle. No danger of sleeping late - the racket of the various bird calls at sunrise guaranteed that we were up with the sun as well.



Our nearest neighbors. One of the perks of the place was all of the eggs we could eat courtesy of the 4 laying hens.


One reason we opted to stop here for a few days was the close proximity of a couple of terrific National Parks. In fact, much of this area is World Heritage listed due to the unique nature of the rainforest around here. Apparently, this forest is truly ancient...harking back to a time when Australia was part of the super continent of Gondwana millions of years ago, ie before the various land masses separated to become the modern continents of Africa, South America, Europe & Asia. Spent a particularly enjoyable day in one of the parks - Dorrigo - about an hour from Coffs and home to some great walking tracks thru the bush.



The trails in the park were really well done. This track wound its way for about 2.5 miles through the jungle, with occasional views of some towering cascades like this one. The bridge provided a perfect viewpoint of the creek, the falls, and the jungle panorama below.







Did a short side trip on the way home and stopped off in the town of Glenreagh for lunch...with this oversized dingo in front. The Aussies seem to love these things. Coffs is also the home of the "Big Banana" - a theme park/working banana plantation celebrating everything banana. There's also a Big Lobster, a Big Pineapple, and a host of other "Big" attractions along the remote highways of Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland.




Spent most of Saturday and Easter Sunday chilling out on this beach. Found a Pandanus tree about halfway down that provided a shady spot and so camped out for the day, walked along the beach and read our books for a few hours. The surf was up, and the remote beach was unguarded, so we didn't risk going in. Saw a total of 5 people all day.


Here's a short clip that will explain why we didn't go in the water. Great surf, but a little to big to tackle without swim fins.

Hunter Valley and Port Stephens

Just finishing up 4 days in the Upper Hunter Valley and then Port Stephens for a few. Beautiful places both. Here are a few photos:



Stayed in a beautiful mountain cabin near Barrington Tops National Park, complete with this view from our front porch/lanai.




The countryside in this part of Australia is especially pretty, with lots of rolling hills and valleys like this scene. The Hunter Valley wine region was just to the south of us, in fact there were a few vineyards in the foothills near us.


Did a couple of very nice, and challenging, hikes. These grass trees apparently grow to be quite old - don't even start to grow the trunk until they're over 20 years old we're told. Our host said that these were upwards of 500 years old, and from the charring on them must have seen and survived several bush fires during the course of their lives.




Did a long hike up in the National Park, and on our return leg we came upon a big, fat Black Python lying in a pool of sunlight right next to the trail. He was HUGE - not in length (about 5 ft) but in girth (about 12 inches around, expanding to about 2 feet around his midsection where a great big lump indicated that he's just swallowed a small wallaby or maybe a possum earlier that morning. Was just sunning himself and digesting breakfast as we passed...on tippy-toes I might add. He never moved a muscle though - wasn't at all concerned about our presence or close proximity.


Drove over to the nearby town of Gloucester one day just to have a look around and spend the afternoon in the pretty town. During our walk we came upon this hotly contested game of lawn bowls going on in the local park. They do love their sports here - had everything going on from a swimming competition to a rugby match to soccer games. Am frankly a little surprised at the Aussie affection for some of the pedestrian British sports like lawn bowls and cricket. They just seem a bit too tame for the rough and tumble Aussies.


After four nights we drove down out of the mountains to Port Stephens, still only a couple of hours from downtown Sydney but right on the coast. The harbor here is supposed to be about twice as big as Port Jackson (Sydney Harbor) and it's absolutely gorgeous. Reminded us a lot of Hawaii - Kauai especially.



Nice view of the coastline from our front porch.



Just around the point from our rental is this stretch of shoreline sand dunes stretching for over 20 miles...supposed to be the biggest in Australia. All I know is that it looked like Saudi Arabia off to the right as we walked along the beach.



This is Fingal Bay. On either side of this headland we had the place all to ourselves. The views called to mind Hawaii...or maybe Tahiti. The water was crystal clear and about 72 deg. - a bit chilly by Hawaii standards but still plenty warm enough to swim in. Have to be careful though - lots of rips in this area.



We explored all of these pretty little beaches on subsequent trips to the area. The little sand spit connecting the two islands in the top of the photo above is dry at low tide and you can walk across the neck to the lighthouse.



Pretty typical view from about two blocks from our rental house. Would have liked to have had some snorkeling gear to hunt for lobster in these rocks - the place must be teeming with them.


Heading north tomorrow morning to another beach community about 5 hours up the coast called Coffs Harbor...home of the "Big Banana".

Blue Mountains Part 2

Some photos from the last few days of our stay in the Blue Mountains




Our fourth day was essentially an "Aboriginal History Day". We drove down to the foothills just outside Sydney to visit a park that had as its centerpiece a hike thru the bush to a cave that featured rock art by the local aboriginal tribe - the Daruk. These hand prints are 1600 years old, and were amazing to view up close. Story is that they were first discovered in 1913 by a search party looking for a lost child.



The hike was a pretty, shaded walk next to a creek for a couple of miles all the way to the cave. One of the interesting stops was at this pool, where you can still see the gouges left by stone age aboriginal hunters as they sharpened their stone axes and tools in these grooves.




As we departed the caves and started up the path on the return leg of the hike I heard a rustling at my feet as a small snake slithered off the trail into the underbrush. Guess he'd been sunning himself before I happened along and disturbed him - nearly stepped on him in fact. Didn't think much of it at the time - he didn't look too threatening, had no particular markings, and I noted that he didn't have that diamond shaped head the most venomous snakes that I'm familiar with have, so I wasn't too concerned. Still, I was interested enough once we got home to do a Google search to see if I could identify him. Well, I did, and it turns out that what I nearly stepped on was the 2nd most deadly snake in Australia - the Eastern Brown Snake. As is the case with several of the most venomous snakes here, when agitated they'll actually come after you. Lucky for me he decided to retreat and not stand his ground when he sensed me approaching else my blogging career might have come to an abrupt end. He was well camouflaged - I never saw him until he moved.



Next day we returned to the Wentworth Falls area. We had been there before and thought the area was so pretty that we wanted to do some more hikes that we'd missed on our first visit . When we arrived about 9 AM this was the sight that greeted us - low-lying clouds filling bowl of the valley. Made for a pretty scene.




Looking down on the falls from a viewpoint above.



Our first hike was this one - the Charles Darwin Walk - named for the naturalist who came here in 1836 during his homeward voyage aboard the Beagle. It was earlier on this same trip (part of a 5 year voyage actually) that he visited the Galapagos Islands and started working out his theory of natural selection that was later published as The Origin of Species. Anyway, he apparently hired a guide and several horses and came up here during a stopover in Sydney. Stayed in the local hotel (still here) and walked this path one morning down to the falls.




A picturesque stop along the way.




And another. That area to the right is a little fern grotto that retreats back into a small cave. It was so inviting that we stopped here on the return trip to sit and have our lunch.



Our second hike was a little more ambitious. Called "The National Pass" hike, it's supposed to be the prettiest walk in the Blue Mountains - we sure wouldn't argue the point. It was really fabulous. Starts from the top of the cliff, then you descend about 200 steps down a very steep metal ladder to about halfway down the cliff face, where you then follow the (very) narrow track around and under several waterfalls for a couple of miles. It was really a magnificent walk, but not for the fainthearted. Gotta give Rita credit - she really doesn't like heights but she gutted this one out from start to finish. And believe me, the photo only hints at the scariness of some of the twists and turns.




At the edge of the abyss...Rita was pretty much memorizing the lace patterns of her boots at this point.



The reward for hanging in there was one of the nicest hikes we've ever been on, dotted with stream crossings like this one just in front of the waterfall you can see to the left, and which is actually a couple of hundred feet high - just couldn't fit it all into the photo.




Another waterfall along the route - all of them gorgeous. The reason most of our photos are of me is that Rita refused to let go of the hand rails...



And another sweeping panorama as we neared the end of the hike...much to Rita's relief.



Along the way we passed a tree where about 20 or 30 of these Sulphur Crested Cockatoos were roosting. We also have a flock of about 50 that comes home every evening to roost in the trees near our self-catering place in Mount Victoria.

Occasionally as we travel around we visit places that don't quite measure up to the expectation we had going in, whether derived from guide books or other research, but I must say that the Blue Mountains have proved to be even better than the hype - they're really fabulous. We've enjoyed our week here immensely and truly hate to leave. Gotta move along, however, this time to an area just north of the Hunter Valley called Barrington Tops. We'll be there for 4 nights.

The Blue Mountains

This week we've been staying in the little town of Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains. The tourism center for the region is Katoomba, about 12 miles down the road from us - close enough to be handy but far enough away to provide lots of peace and quiet in the evenings.





This sandstone formation is called the Three Sisters, and the name traces back to an aboriginal story. It's also tourist central for the Blue Mountains area. Located in the town of Katoomba at a place called Echo Point, it's the main stop for every tour bus within about a 50 mile radius. Nice place to visit but we didn't linger.



There were lots of interesting, although challenging, hikes radiating out from the Echo Point area - most of which traced the cliff face along the valley. Some of the ups and downs were reminiscent of my walks in the Columbia River Gorge, where everything seems to be either steep uphill or steep downhill with not a lot of level ground in between. This one was called the Undercliff Walk for obvious reasons, and provided terrific views of the valley floor below from every turn in the trail.



We're at an altitude of about 3,000 ft. here - not mountainous by any means but high enough to provide cool, crisp temperatures in the evenings. The first day of Autumn was the 21st, and the leaves are already starting to change at this elevation. As some of the hikes worked their way back into bush the forest turned almost tropically lush, like this area featuring some large tree ferns. Reminded us a lot of New Zealand, where these things are called Ponga trees.



Came upon several little waterfalls with their inviting little pools, like this one near Wentworth Falls.




Lots of sweeping panoramas like this one. Guess the blue haze that these mountains take their name from is a result of billions of little droplets of eucalyptus oil that all of the trees expire into the atmosphere. Have read that in some seasons, and under some lighting conditions, the sky can turn almost cobalt blue. It wasn't quite that dramatic for us, but still pretty nonetheless.



One of the many waterfalls we encountered on our first day out and about. The falls range from these little wedding cake cascades to some rather major drops that rival anything I've seen in Oregon along the gorge for both height and beauty.



We usually manage to find inviting, off the beaten path places to have lunch, like this hole-in-the-wall peep hole near one of the lookouts. It took a bit of getting to, and required a bit of scrambling along the way, but the reward was to have it all to ourselves while the rest of the tourists fought it out down below.




This is called the Queen's Cascade, and it was fun to splash around in the shallows for a few minutes (helps to have waterproof boots).




On our second day out we did a cliffside walk near the neighboring town of Blackheath. We were out fairly early and apparently were some of the first people on the trail. At any rate, as we were heading down the path we kept hearing the nearby musical call of a Lyre Bird. They're not particularly rare or anything, but you hardly ever hear them except off in the distance. This one sounded like he was right next to us on the trail, and it turned out that he was ... literally. We stopped and looked for him in the brush, and he couldn't have been more than 15 feet away, scratching along the ground and singing non-stop. Must have been a female in the area because he was also "displaying", or fluffing his feathers and spreading that magnificent tail up and over his head like a peacock. It was quite a sight, and a rare one at that I guess. Not only is their song one of the most melodious of any bird-sound, but when they're trying to impress a potential mate they can mimic other sounds that they've heard - everything from other bird calls to human generated sounds like car alarms, camera shutters, and even chain saws - virtually anything they've ever heard they can mimic. Couldn't record his song with our camera, but did find this link to a BBC piece and it really is worth a listen:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y

We're here in the mountains until the 29th, when we head for the Hunter Valley.