NSW Dismissed

Well, we left Canberra with some unexpected regret. It has been a great town to visit and we have both learned and enjoyed a lot.

We headed on up the Hume Highway to visit some friends of ours in Camden (Hiya Tracey & Colin) - people we met in Darwin and people that we have always liked. Camden is a much more rural place than I expected and the town itself is nice and friendly sized.

They have recently moved to the town from Darwin so our dinner out at the Camden Valley Inn was a voyage of discovery for all of us.

A good meal and great company - thanks guys!

Leaving Camden we decided to skip Sydney completely. We have lived there and we don't like it that much. Too much the big city for these country cousins. However, the road system has improved since we were there though with the M7/M2 providing an easy way to drive around the city. For what its worth, this leg of the trip gave us the best fuel consumption we have seen - we used 14.3 litres every 100klms and we were towing the HTC for 99.9% of the drive. That compares to mid 15s most of the time.

Anyway, having skipped Sydney we decided to head up to Crowdy Bay and camp out at Diamond Head. 

Of course when we got there, with it still being NSW school holidays, we found the place wall to wall tents and screaming kids so we wandered off to the next place along the Bay - Indian Head where we found a deserted campsite and we set up there for a few nights.

Nice place as you can see:

Lots of wild life wandering around including the biggest kookaburras we have ever seen. Cheeky too!

The walk along the clifftops from headland to headland was pretty spectacular too and this pic of the "Natural Arch" shows just one great spot.

As we approached the beach at Diamond Head we saw vehicles on the beach (eat your hearts out Victorians) and we wandered around checking out the headland itself and the "Split Rock". Lovely stuff, but it did start to look cloudy.

Cloudy - hmm. In fact, the weather turned really wet and foul and we decided to get out of there before the roads closed or we washed away. The coast was just sodden so we decided to head inland to drive the Waterfall Way from Urunga to Bellingen to Dorrigo to Ebor and on to Armidale and hope that the weather would improve with the storms staying coastal.

No such luck. After seeing a couple of waterfalls from the comfort of the Troll (and watching waterfalls cascading off our roof rack) we chose to head off to the Cathedral Rock Nat Park and camp out there and see if the next day was any better.

Well, the next day was indeed better, at least in the morning, and we got to walk out to the Ebor Falls on the Guy Fawkes River. Pretty sectacular after the rain as I am sure you will agree.

I wonder who threw the bike in there though? Anyone spot it?

Walking as little further on we came to a second viewing platform where we could see both the upper and lower falls, but by this time it was raining again and we headed back to the Troll,

Before we left I took this pic of the hills cloaked in mist and rain - looks pretty, but it is damp and horrible really.

With soggy feet we headed north again, hoping to escape the downpours and by the time we reached Brooms Head the sun was shining and the day looked lovely.

We spent the afternoon drying out the soggy stuff and then we walked the kilometre to the Bowls Club for tea. Tea was good (they have a Chinese restaurant there) but by the time we wanted to head back the rain was with us again. The club loaned us a couple of umbrellas (thanks guys) but as even the road was under 2 inches of water we got soggy feet again.

The storms lasted all night and the next morning so we thought "Stuff NSW, we're off to QLD" and we headed north to the Gold Coast where it is dry and warm and lovely.

At least for now.

Canberra - pt II

War museum - what a great, humbling, depressing, uplifting and generally interesting experience.

If you go to Canberra then you MUST go to the War Memorial and the Museum. I can't stress that enough.

We didn't want to do anything after that apart from retail therapy for Karen and a couple of beers at an Irish pub while we mulled over our thoughts.

One comment we both had was that it is hard to reconcile our understanding of how you treat people with that shown by the Japanese during WWII.

Various Canberra pics that most of you will recognise.

Simpson's Donkey. What we didn't realise about this story was that:
1) Simpson was a Pom who just wanted to get back home.
2) He only lasted 24 days.
3) He was the first, but there were dozens of men with donkeys helping the wounded down.

The view to Parliament House.

This is about 7-% of the WWI list of the dead - 62,000 of them in all.

Inside the Hall of Remembrance

The eternal flame.

Lest we forget.

Canberra

Did I say we were going somewhere warmer?

Canberra?

The fact is that, yes, it IS warmer here than it was in Melbourne. 

Just doing the touristy things now, including the Parliament House tour (really interesting) and heading off to the War Memorial (and museum) and the Mint tomorrow. 

Points to note:
1) The butcher in Holbrook (near Gundegai in the town with the submarines) is excellent.

2) The Senate is, as we all know, decorated and upholstered in various shades of eucalypt flower pink and red. In order to not clash with this colour scheme they made the EXIT signs red as well and they had to change the law (which mandates that they are green) to provide this specific exclusion. It is the only place in the world with red EXIT signs!

3) The autumnal colours of the trees are beautiful.

Melbourne

Mixed bag to report on Melbourne.

We stayed in a van park (couldn't imagine free camping in Melbourne) that had all the bells and whistles from individual bathrooms to a sauna etc etc. Still, you paid for it at $52 a night.

While we were there we spent some time wandering the city (fun and interesting - there are some freaky people there), meeting up with family and friends, going to the Comedy Festival to see Will Anderson (man, what a funny and thought provoking bloke he is) and on Easter Monday going to the MCG to watch the Cats beat the Hawks by 2 points in an absolute thriller of a game. We had magic seats and the stadium sheltered us from most of the freezing cold rain that fell during the game.

Freezing cold? Yeah, apart from the first day there we just froze and consequently we have high tailed it out of chilly old Victoria and we are now just short of Gundegai. We'll spend a couple of nights in Canberra so we can see some of the sights, but I don't expect to be there very long - we want to get somewhere warmer!

Thoughts on Tassie

Beautiful. No, make that “Really Beautiful” as Tassie in late summer and early autumn is a spectacular place.

Wildlife. We have seem more wildlife in Tassie (and not just justly angry pissums) than anywhere else. This has included snakes (tiger snakes and a single black snake), possums of different types, padmelons, poteroos, rats, devils and quolls. Sadly, the devil and the quolls were (like a heap of the possums) just roadkill, but at least we saw them.

Tasmanian Fairies. No – not Bob Brown, I was thinking of the Superb Fairy Wren, a tiny little ball of avian energy smaller than a squash ball that hops around whenever you sit still for more than two minutes and always makes you smile at their antics. The breeding males, with their blue caps and collars and (sometimes) tail feathers are particularly endearing.

Camping. Tassie seems to have a huge number of free or very cheap camping sites, many of them with toilets etc. This is almost unique in Australia and we loved the freedom that it allowed.

Forests. Yes, Tassie has a lot of forests and while I prefer the less claustrophobic  feel of “Big Sky” country I have to say that these forests are magical and awe inspiring. Walking among the giants of these forests is an almost humbling experience.

Roads. Tassie is not very big, but it still takes time to get from A to B because the roads go up, down, left and right and you can’t go very fast. A friend of mine living near Devonport has a 4.5 litre Patrol for off road work but took delight in punting his sporty Mazda MPS around. Until I saw the roads for myself this was a mystery to me, but now I understand.

East Coast. The whole of the East Coast is littered with little bays rimmed with white sand and sporting water that is just azure in colour. Everyone has seen photos of Wineglass Bay, but there are thousands of other examples equally as beautiful. They look like they belong in Tahiti or some other Pacific paradise, but they are found in Tassie and are, for the most part, deserted and simply breathtaking.

West Coast. Totally different experience to the Easy Coast and it is much wilder. You are more weather aware over there, but it is a fantastic place.

Mountains. Yep – lots of them and they are beautiful but generally accessible. Go for a walk!

Beer. Boags in the north and Cascade in the south. Both are good.

Socks. It has been years since I wore socks every day, but they are a necessity in chilly Tassie.

Cold. Nothing more to be said, but note the comment about socks above and the fact that I have been wearing a beanie FAR too often. However, watching the change of the seasons through the colours that the trees display as autumn hits is fantastic.

Fun stuff – check out this pub!

Fungi – some of the fungi that grow in Tassies forests are striking to say the least!

Tassie is also full of small rows of letterboxes.

Last of all – and it bears repeating – Tasmania is a beautiful place.

Devonport

Boatharbour, and our place on Sisters Beach, was a lovely example of how the Tassie north coast can be.

Sisters Beach is a small community that is in the heart of a National Park, the Rocky Cape NP, and it provides not only beauty and seclusion, but a heap of walks around the NP as well.

The picture below shows a view from one of the walks we tried out. Pretty eh?

This walk took us to Anniversary Point and as you can see, it is typically Tassie beautiful. The walk was reasonably hard and we didn't see another soul out there at all. Pristine beach and bush - love it!

Once we left there we headed off to the pub (of course) but we called into the Table Cape area near Wynyard where they say they have the richest soil in Australia and they grow tulips that are exported to Holland.

Inevitably they also have a lighthouse so we had to take a picture of that!

. . . . .  and the views from the lighthouse

We also took a walk along the Inglis River into Wynyard that was around 12km long. A beautiful walk along the sunny river bank that ended up with us sitting on the verandah of the pub, sipping a drink and relaxing. 

We have also taken a drive out to Leven Gorge and taken the walk around the lookouts.

Walking between the lookouts involved a lot of stairs. 697 of them in one stretch so the knees took a bit of a battering. Still, it was worth it. 

Note to self - add info on the following pics . . 

After our walk on Mt Roland we drove through Sheffield.

No, not the city where I went to school and did all my youthful hooning around, but the town in Tassie with a theme that has them painting murals all over any blank walls.

Railton, nearby, has a similar theme, but theirs is topiary. Have a look at these excellent examples and there are MANY more

Lastly, this is our camp and a tree turning different autumnal colours.