Week Nine (9)

22nd February to coming home

Don’t those bloody kookaburras know its Sunday? We are again awoken by a cacophony of birdsong as well as the Australian family, who because they cannot lay in, have to entertain their children outside bright, early and loud. As Sunday lay ins are not part of the Aussie way of life, we are soon snorkelling in the bay after adding more sunflower seeds and spreading them over a larger area.

The water is slightly cloudy with the sand being stirred up by the outgoing tide but there is no mistaking something the size of your average dining room table swimming beneath you. Two underwater pictures of a stingray and its gone, but what a memory. We play in the shallows around the headland totally confusing the Aussies, all of whom are amazed we are not hunting the lobster and abalone for the regulatory BBQ,

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner but are taking pictures of them. Having no wetsuits and it being the Tasman Sea ¾ hr is about all we can take so make it back to camp to find the sunflower seeds have still not been eaten. The afternoon is spent beachcombing and paddling with and photographing, from above this time, the rays who are awaiting the returning fisherman’s cast-offs. Eek, this time next week we will be at the airport awaiting our flight home, the rest of the evening is spent planning the itinerary for our last few days. What’s that? Can it be? We peep out the windows but the bloody sunflower seeds are still there……

Good morning, how would you like some seeds with your cereals? We look out the window and the seeds have gone, quick put some more out. Outside in bare feet spreading sunflowers seeds with gay abandonment, when yuck, its not birds that have eaten them, it’s kangaroos and guess what they left behind to be trodden in….

We arrive in Jervis bay, after showering and are blinded by the whiteness of the sands and the clarity of the sea, so what do we do, yep, we set off on a forest walk, where we see our first wild Echidna, scurrying around in the undergrowth.

Wow! what is that? Six Glossy Black Cockatoos flying around in the tree tops making so much noise we have to shout at each other, No we didn’t get married…. Camera out, lens changed and neck pain commenced, looking directly above us for long periods at our age is not a good idea. The local campsites suck so we arrive in Shoalhaven Heads to see two Glossy Black Cockatoos fly over us, out comes the sunflower seeds and we start the waiting game all over again…

Not a cloud in the sky so we set off for Seven Mile Beach, its windy and beginning to cloud over so a quick change of plan and we are on the road to Kangaroo Valley via Kiama, its all up hill at first with some hairpin bends that are so tight my rear end slips on the ruts, the van’s end that is…. Once over the escarpment which is holding the cloud back, the sun is out and this place looks like North Wales and the Lake District, only with more trees. As you would expect in a place called Kangaroo Valley we see plenty of Valleys but not one kangaroo, it’s green, greener and greener than green.

We see Fitzroy falls and Carrington falls, neither fall being as impressive as the 

gorges beyond them.

                                              
We take a different route home which is even more scary than the route in, especially now we have to turn the fog lights on due to the cloud coming lower and visibility reduced to 30m causing one really scary moment which caused both rear ends this time to vibrate on the bend ruts and only got mentioned after it had passed ..….

The day starts off sunny and Kiama’s beaches look inviting but the cloud is moving in and before long its overcast again. We arrive in the Royal National Park and the sun is shining and hot, we stop in a deserted place to have a prepared in the van lunch.

We see a white car drive pass with the driver giving us a good look up and down. 10 minutes later we see the same car and driver do exactly the same, Julie feels uneasy about this, because of our remote location. Steve is full of bravado until he hears a noise he does not recognise, it’s enough to get him up on his feet and approach whatever it is behind the van. There it is, a car but it’s not white and it has flat front tyre which explains the strange noise. It pulls over directly behind the van and stops, Steve is slightly less anxious and is returning to Julie, explaining what the noise was. Both occupants are alighting from the car, the driver who is wearing track suit bottoms which are falling down and revealing his underpants must be 80+ years, so feeling safe, we both sit down and whilst having a cup of tea watch these Senior Citizens struggle to change the wheel. Okay, that’s not quite true, Steve changed into his super hero suit and changed the wheel for them, they were so grateful as neither wanted to admit it but the comments they made basically said how much they would have struggled to have done it themselves. None of us could explain why the tyre blew exactly where it did or when it did as the location was so remote, but it was nice to do a good turn for an ex Rhodesian Police Officer, who moved to Oz in 1965, bought his car 20 years ago, had never had a problem with it before and was thankful to Australia for being so good to both of them. Ahhhh, We continue through the park and thankfully Steve had kept his shirt tucked into his underpants as he manages to stop this 5.9m van within a meter or so as a Kamikaze baby Echidna crossed the road in front of him. The baby stopped, looked at us, sniffed the air with his long nose, looked directly at us posing for a photograph and then ran back to where he had come from. Problem was, Super Steve was driving and the passengers camera was in the back of the van, within minutes she was back with camera in hand, out of the van and taking pictures of a retreating Echidna…..

Thursday 26^th turns out to be disaster day, we get up and go look at the beach the other side of the sand dune, it sucks, it smells and is covered in seaweed. We decide to have a look at East Beach Kiama even though we have already booked into seaweed beach for three nights, as we move out we notice a nail in the front off side tyre, we leave it alone and note where we want the wheel to be when we return the vehicle.

We go to Minnamurra Rainforest and do the board walk to Minnamura falls, not an animal to be seen, but then we had a party of 50 girl guides in front of us on the way up and a really rude park ranger roaring about on a quad bike with a noisy trailer on the way down. We go to the café next to the Visitor Centre at 14.15hrs, it closed at 14.00hrs. Gasping for a drink we set off to Jamberoo when we pass a ‘stock crossing’ sign, two minutes later we are sat with hazard lights on waiting for what appeared to be an unattended heard of cows cross the road. We get to Jamberoo and find a patisserie/café run by one lady, she states she cannot do a cheese roll as she is out of rolls, so we ask to buy a roll for sale in the patisserie part plus some cheese in the café part and have them put together, this she reluctantly agrees to, although Steve got another one of those looks. Then she drops a knife on the way out, drops another later on, drops a tray a bit later and a plate after that, she admitted to us later, “ I’m having one of those days” this was after Steve had subtly reminded her of the cheesecakes they had ordered over half hour ago, to be accompanied by drinks as well…

We go to Bombo bay to take pictures of the strange rock formation but the light is so bad, the pictures all turn out rubbish. We think, now it’s bright, lets try Saddleback Mountain lookout, we may actually be able to see something for a change. We get there and can see in the haze, Kiama, Shellharbour, Bombo and Jamberoo but again because of the light the pictures turn out rubbish again.

On the road down we again nearly run over a Echidna, we stop as this one just buries his head so as not to see us and carries on looking for food. We get pictures of him when he looks up and Jungle Julie pulls a leech off of his back, this is cut short when we are disturbed by some scenic tourist who wants to use the road we are obstructing...…. We book into East Beach campsite, wasting the other booking but have a seaweed free bay to use tomorrow, which must be better as the weather forecast is Sunny and hot.

Sunrise is a bit of a disappointment but the cleanliness of the beach makes up for it as we are soon underwater chasing a large shoal of whiting around Kiama’s East Beach.

We are then off to Cathedral Rocks and find a superb beach for snorkelling behind the Bombo headland, as we approach it we find the people who have told us snakes are more afraid of us than we are of them, were telling the truth. We are looking into the trees, at the fairy wren when whoosh rustle rustle is the sound from underfoot, unlike anything else we have heard……. Back at camp late afternoon and we start the going home process, first step is to clean the inside of the van, second to dispose of the tinned food to a Canadian couple next to us, third turn off the fridge, fourth have a cup of tea, fifth, sixth, seventh mop up the water from the fridge……

The journey home starts with breakfast at Austinmer Beach which we share with all the weekend motor cycle enthusiasts, fitness fanatics and of course the posers. For some reason we don’t stand out from the crowd……We take our time driving through the last rainforest of the holiday with that really awful feeling in the pit of your stomach, you get when you are anticipating something nasty….. AU$2736 later, being the cost of putting VORTEX in a diesel engine the feeling has gone to be replaced with the expectant feeling of we might win the lottery tonight…. 

Having complained about our room, last time at this hotel, we get one with four windows and all of which have a view,

We can see the harbour which is buzzing with life from two of them and the Sydney Tower from the other two. But best of all it’s got a bath and 20 minutes later with my friend Shiraz, I have completely relaxed and forgotten all about the evil Vortex……. Out for dinner when one of us gets inspiration to get a ferry across the harbour, quick just in time for the half six ferry. Ten minutes later, “Sydney ferries would like to apologise for the delay” blah de blah…. Twenty five minutes late we set sail for Manley but hey now the sun is beginning to set so lets grab a picture or two.

Dinner is simple, nice and over the harbour, we return to Circular Quay and walk around the opera house without a tripod…. The atmosphere is magic, it may never be repeated, only one thing to do, sit and have a glass of wine in the shadow of the Opera House whilst watching hundreds of other people take pictures of Sydney Harbour Bridge without a tripod. We walk through Kings Cross and get invited into lots of establishments and I think to myself, ‘Blimey, I’m popular, and as it’s not that hot, I wonder why those girls are wearing next to nothing’ Back to hotel and delete most of pictures taken during evening due to camera/boat shake…. Shiraz is still here, we keep each other company planning tomorrows trip to the Aquarium, whilst reminiscing and thinking “What a bloody good holiday”