Sunday 29th April 2012 - Gold Coast

Hooray the rain stopped today! They had approximately 120mm yesterday. Man we felt soaked. Anyway we have blue skies today so happy days!
We drove up towards the Natural bridge in the hills outside the Gold Coast. The is a waterfall there that flows through a natural opening in the rocks. It was quite spectalular!

Ed being silly...AGAIN

The water gushing through the rock hole.

The waterfall landing underneath the rocks

Next stop was a drive up to the Lamington National Park, specifically to Binna Burra. We completed the rainforest walk which was quite muddy at times, as well as the short walk to some ancient beech trees which were the same type of trees found in Gondwana land before all the land masses across the earth pulled apart and Australia became an island. It was a beautiful walk through a sub-tropical rainforest.

200 + year old Beech Trees

More Beech Trees

We returned back to the caravan park and hit the books for a short while before enjoying dinner and a game or two of Uno. Early night as we are hitting Sea World tomorrow!

Saturday 28th April 2012 Yuraygir to the Gold Coast

It continued to rain all day and unfortunately it got heavier and heavier. As we left we drove back through the creek crossing and I had to take a few photo's of it.

Before the crossing.....

During.....

and After!

We moved onto Byron Bay and to our disappointment it continued to rain. We had a picnic lunch on the run and in a slight break with less rain we went up to the lighthouse and completed one of our aims...to go to the eastern most point of the mainland.

The Lighthouse at Cape Byron

The easterly point!

Ed and the kids in front of the lighthouse

We drove on and crossed the border into Queensland and it continued to rain, rain & RAIN!!!!

We are now camped at an expensive caravan park. We had planned to explore the Lamington National Park tomorrow however with all this rain we might not make it. 

We are booked into the Sea World Resort for 2 nights next week and entry into Sea World, Movie World and Wet & Wild are part of the package. As the rain might continue the hotel will be very welcome. A friend of mine from Perth lives on the Sunshine Coast and is dying for us to come and stay. As they are only an hour from Brisbane using their home as a base to explore is a mighty fine option.

Why oh why does it have to rain so much!!!!!!

So glad I have finally bought up on the blog. Hope you are all enjoying our little adventure.

Bye Bye xoxo

Friday 27th April 2012 - Port Macquarie to Yuraygir National Park

After having warm showers and getting all our washing down we hit the road heading north towards Coffs Harbour. We went inland slightly to the Dorrigo National Park. We drove up to the park which was about 760m. The park has a lovely rainforest walk which takes you past 2 large waterfalls.
The first waterfall, Crystal Springs, was straight and narrow. We were able to climb down and walk behind the waterfall. We got a nice fine spray on us whilst we were under the waterfall.

A view from the suspension bridge

The view from behind the waterfall

The second waterfall was also beautiful. It was wider and more of a cascading waterfall. Both these fall were surrounded by lush sub-tropical rainforest.

The whole walk was 6.6km and we completed it in 1 hr and 50 minutes with stops looking at all the trees, some swamp wallabies and Olivia spotted some sort of native mouse (we think). We were quite warm after the walk and enjoyed some chocolate and water before hitting the road again. We drove into Coffs Harbour - saw the Big Banana and kept on driving!

It was getting late so we drove onto Yuraygir National Park and stayed at the Station Creek Campground. We originally were keen to go to the Pebbly Beach campground however you could only get there on low tide as there was a water crossing involved so we stayed put. 

On the way in there was a creek crossing and a muddy road. Unfortunately it started to rain lightly so we hurried through dinner and got the kids to bed. 

I was the champion spotlighted (by accident) as I saw a Bandicoot when I went for a wee!

Thursday 26th April 2012 Port Macquarie

To avoid going the long way around we found a ferry crossing near Myall Lakes  at Boombah Point.

We drove through to Port Macquarie. We did a bit shop to restock on everything before heading to the Sea Acres Rainforest Centre. A lovely retired lady called Joanne gave us a tour around Port Macquarie's sub-tropical rainforest. She was very knowledgable and shared may facts with us about the rainforest plants and animals. It was very unique as it is close to the beach and in town.

Ed and the kids in a memorial area of the sub tropical rainforest walk

A strangling fig in the rainforest

After leaving the rainforest centre we went for a visit to the Koala Hospital. They rehabilitated Koalas to return them to the wild. Some are not able to be released and become residents of the hospital. There were some very sad stories about the Koalas, however the dedication of the volunteers and staff is amazing. There were a couple of 21year old Koalas who had to be fed special formula to supplement their diet as well as several koalas with major injuries such as eye and leg injuries. They also name them according to where they are found e.g. Macquarie flower. This means that they are able to be put back into wild close to where they were found as Koalas are territorial animals.

One of the Koalas waiting to get put back in the wild.

As were were in need of showers and clean clothes we stayed the night in a local caravan park. Hmmm hot shower!

Monday 23rd April 2012 - Goobang to Goulburn National Park

It was good to have a rest day yesterday so we then hit the road to drive back towards to the coast. Before we left Goobang National Park we stopped at the Caloma Trig Lookout for a lovely view of the area.

We left the park and as we were driving along the road past a farm we found a poor female kangaroo whose legs were caught in the electric fence. She had a joey too. It was sad as she was in real distress. Ed managed to use some sticks to separate the wires and free her legs to give her a chance. He did want to put her out of her misery but the kids and I convinced him to free her and see if she could survive. She was exhausted after we had freed her so I hope she made it.
We moved  back towards the coast stopping in Wellington.
We had a quick look at a fossil walk before heading out to the Goulburn National Park. The roads were a bit wet and slippery but we made it into the first campsite which we had to ourselves. It was next to the river and there were heaps on kangaroos there when we drove in. We even managed to get a fire going for a short time to cook some marshmallows! You could see all the bush that had been flowing through the river with the recent floods. The rock wall on the other side was beautiful and apparently the park had Aboriginal rock art there - probably higher up in the hills than we ventured.

We went spotlighting after dinner of a little while before Olivia & Thomas had had enough. Charlotte and Ed stayed out a bit longer and Charlotte was so excited to spot a Sugar Glider.
We had a lovely night listening to the sounds of the bush....

Saturday 21st April 2012 Newnes State Forest to Goobang National Park

We packed up in good time and headed into Lithgow for a look around.
On the way
I told the kids about Marjorie Jackson aka 'The Lithgow Flash.' I'm not sure if they were that interested! Anyway we then drove onto Bathurst. First stop was a spot of washing. While that was on we decided to check out (for all you rev head's).....Mount Panorama. We took a drive around the track in the 4WD with the camper trailer going 60km/hr. I don't know how they drive the circuit going 200km/hr plus. It was quite funny doing it with the trailer! The significance was lost on the kids as Ed and I are not into car racing and I would like to say that I was moved by the spirit of Brockie but I wasn't.
Ed did think that some of the tight, steep corners were pretty cool and you can understand why their wheels come of the ground. So at least someone got something out of it!

Roaring down the straight!!!!

While the washing was in the dryer we went to the Australian Fossil and Mineral Museum. It is housed in a historic old school house. The collection on display was mainly collected by a local man ? Dr Sommerville (I have forgotten his name!) Anyway some he found himself or he bought and traded some from overseas. Whilst it wasn't a huge collection it was amazing. The mineral collection was quite dazzling. The fossils were also beautiful. There was a whole fossilised crab intact and the biggest exhibit was the only fully intact skeleton of a T-Rex! The girls completed worksheets and they all did a fossil rubbing for their journals.

Thomas with his new mate!

We had a late lunch and then drove onto Parkes. I wanted to see "the Dish.' It was great to see it working and how large it really was up close. Made me want to see the movie again, especially the part where they played cricket on the dish. The kids had fun looking at planets and star constellations. It was cool!

Holding the dish in my hands!

We camped close to Parkes in the Goobang National Park at the Greenbah Campsite. It had the campsites on the outside on the ring road with a central grassed area with fire pits. We had a relaxing evening there and it was so nice we had a rest day there on Sunday catching up on school work and the kids journals. The kids did some spot lighting both nights with Ed which they enjoyed. They you nd a giant moth which they loved Ed went out again after they had gone to bed and found a cute little gecko.

The cute little gecko!

Our super-sized moth!

Friday 20th April 2012 - Sydney to Newnes State Forest near Lithgow

We departed Sydney at lunchtime as Tricia had an early Anzac Day Bugle job to do so we looked after her kids and packed the car & trailer. On Pete's advice we drove via Windsor and Richmond towards Lithgow. It was a beautiful drive with a continuation of the lovely rock formations through the Blue Mountains. At one stage we came across this rock wall called, 'The Wall' which was amazing! The colours were so beautiful, however as the sun wasn't quite in the right spot our photo's don't truly reflect how lovely it was. There was loads of twist and turns along the road (thankfully Olivia wasn't sick) and it was very picturesque along the way.

We went off road into the Newnes State Forest and found a camping spot in the bush. The kids had almost forgotten how to bush camp and it took them a little bit of time and a few reminders to get them back into the bush camping mode. We enjoyed a campfire with toasted marshmallows for sweets - Nice!

Monday 16th April - Friday 20th April 2012 - Sydney

As I was away for the first 2 days in Sydney I will leave it to Ed and the kids to tell you what they did. I don't think that they missed me too much - they were having too much fun!
Ed and the kids got an all day public transport pass to explore the city. The got to Circular Quay and caught the ferry across to the harbour to the Taronga Zoo. They took the Skyrail up to the zoo and then Ed found out that the whole family couldn't get into the Zoo for free (which is different to Perth Zoo and every other Zoo so far) so they decided not to go and they took the Skyrail back down to the ferry and went back to Circular Quay and then they caught another ferry to Luna Park.

The kids had fun there and even won some prizes! After Luna Park they walked up and caught a train across the Harbour Bridge to get a view from on top. They then proceeded to get lost around the city before returning to Tricia's house later in the day.

On the ferry

Tuesday it started to rain and continued to rain constantly on and off till we left on Friday. They all hung around and played with Tricia & Pete's kids Brianna & Callum for the morning and ventured out around lunchtime for a walk down around Coogee Beach before returning back indoors due to the rain.
Ed picked me up from the airport after the red eye flight at around 6.30am. I was shattered! We went back to the camper and I fell asleep for 4 hours after saying good morning to the kids. It was raining heavily in Sydney and had been since Tuesday. After catching up with Tricia we went for a drive around Watson's Bay and The Gap. We had a lunch in Cronulla and then continued our drive around in the rain exploring parts of Sydney. We enjoyed a nice catch up with Tricia and Pete that night after the kids had gone to bed.
Thursday saw us taking off to explore the Blue Mountains. We stopped at Cahill's Lookout for our first views of the Blue Mountains.

We then drove around to a place called Scenic World. They had great views of the Three Sisters. Charlotte was especially fascinated by the aboriginal story of the origins of the Three Sisters. At Scenic World we took a railway which is the steepest in the world (52 degree angle) with over a 200m vertical drop through a natural stone tunnel. It was scary as you couldn't see the bottom as you went over the edge.

We walked around to the Katoomba Falls which were spectacular from the ground and later on we saw them from the air which was even better!

We also walked down around the rainforest floor along all these purpose built boardwalks. The rainforest was beautiful. To get back up to the top we caught the Skyway (a tiered cable car) up. It was a huge vertical rise and looked amazing rising up from the rainforest floor. We then made our way across to the Cable Car which took us across to the other side giving us a great ariel view of the Three Sisters and the Katoomba falls. Along the way there was a beautiful rainbow across the Mountains.

As the railway was so much fun we did it again - this time in the front row - it was very scary!!!! We went down and back.
After leaving Scenic World we drove around to Echo Point and had an even closer view of the Three Sisters. The colours and layers of the rocks were just beautiful. We took may more photo's - these are just a small selection.

After stopping in Katoomba we went back to Sydney and we were late back for dinner as we totally underestimated the time it took to get back in Sydney traffic.
Had a great time catching up with Tricia and Pete in Sydney.

Sunday 15th April 2012 Shell Harbour to Sydney

I forgot to add these pictures in from yesterdays visit to the Fitzroy Falls. We saw a Lyre bird! It ran out onto the path in front of us and Ed had the camera ready and he got loads of photo's.

We had as usual a leisurely start to the day. We drove through Wollongong and up to the  Mount Kiera Lookout. It was a fantastic view of the whole area from the industrial part of the city, the surrounding burbs and the beach and beyond. There were also several freighters just off the shore.

We then just made our way into Sydney and camped in our friends backyard. Thanks Tricia and Pete (& their kids Brianna 5years old and Callum 1year old) for allowing us to stay at your house. It was great to see them after we were at their wedding in January back in Perth. Thank god their backyard was big enough!

Tricia and Brianna were in Perth so after setting up we left Pete and  Callum alone and went exploring. It was a nice sunny day and being a Sunday everyone was doing the same thing. Parking was a bit of a nightmare! Our first stop was Bondi Beach. The kids wanted to see where the show Bondi rescue was filmed so we pulled on the bathers and went for a swim. Ed and the kids hit the waves and I just wet my legs!

We then drove around the coast to Bronte Beach. As we were in Sydney we had to see the iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House so we went for a drive. We hadn't arranged an etag for the toll to cross the bridge (we will be getting that in the mail!) and we crossed the Harbour Bridge to the delight of the kids seeing the Opera House along the way. We drove over to Manly with the intention of having lunch however we could not find a park anywhere! We then took the scenic route back over the water towards Tricia & Pete's house, eventually finding somewhere to eat a very late lunch!

As I was flying to Perth that night to work Mon & Tues I packed and got ready to go. Ed dropped me off at the airport after dinner with the kids and I had a very uncomfortable trip over to Perth - I swear that there was no padding in the seat! Mum & Dad picked me up from the airport. They were excited to see me but Mum seemed more excited that the West Coast Eagles were on the same flight as me!

Saturday 14th April 2012 - Canberra to Shell Harbour

We left Ben & Tracy's house by 9am so that they could get to netball etc. Tracy put us on the road after a pancake breakfast which the kids especially love. We headed up to Goulburn and had a quick stop for food supplies. We then headed for Bowral so that I could go to the Bradman Museum. I enjoyed looking around by myself and seeing the exhibition being the cricket lover that I am.

Upon Tracy's recommendation we then followed the Kangaroo Way which was a beautiful drive through temperate rainforest. Along the way we walked to Fitzroy Falls which is one of the largest falls in Australia. There are several walkways around the falls to get different views of the falls and the surrounding mountains and rock formations.

The road took us out to the coast(slightly south) to Gerroa. There is an area there called Black Head where you can walk around the rocks on the beach finding fossils. The rocks look a little like the Tessellated Rocks in Tasmania. The kids had a ball looking for fossils.

We then got back into the car and headed towards Kiama famous for the Blowhole near the lighthouse. We got there at the same time as a bus load of tourists. The blowhole wasn't performing to well for us, however it was a great view of the coastline. Kiama looked like a pretty town, however as it was school holidays we were not able to stay there.

We stayed the night just south of Wollongong at Shell Harbour. It was a long day. We needed to get close to Sydney as I was leaving to fly to Perth for 2 days work Sunday night.