Australian Road Trip: Week Two

The last blog post, we left off in Narooma.  Sorry for the delay in posting this, but the fun just never stopped! We continued the road trip continued...

Day Six: Kiama

After a good night's sleep we started out the next day by driving around the bend to Kianga for breakfast at Anton's.  We had a lovely meal looking out at the beach.  After breakfast we had a short walk along the beach, and mom and I even got up the guts to dip our toes into the ocean. It was very cold; even the sand was cold from the previous night's rain.  But, that day was a day of beach hopping, so we had plenty of opportunities to find warmer beaches.  The next one we tried was at Moruya Head Beach.  This sand was much nicer and we all dipped our toes and walked along the water.

Dad on the Beach.  There was also a lot of volcanic rock along the way.

Unfortunately we saw so many beaches they all tend to blend together in my mind.  I think this one may have actually been 7 Mile Beach.  I'll have to try and confirm with mom and dad.

We continued our drive up the coast this time, so several place names seemed familiar from the week before.  Our next stop was in Ulladulla.  We only wanted to stop there for the visitor's centre in order to get directions to a nearby winery.  We drove to Cupitt's Wine in no time.  This was a fantastic place for a snack and a glass of wine.  The tables looked out over the rolling hills, the vineyard and grazing cattle.  There was also a girl singing with her piano to set the ambiance.  We shared pizza and croquettes, which completed the wine and were delightful.  It was a really nice pit stop.

Photo cred: Mom; despite there not being any photo evidence that she was here, we can assure you she was.

We stopped at yet another beach before heading to our house.  This was a very long sandy beach in the Seven Mile Beach National Park.  We hit some traffic in Nowra, but got to Kiama just as the sun was going down.  We have lucked out on some really amazing sunsets and sunrises; in Kiama, this was no different.  Kiama is known for its blowhole.  We stopped at Kiama's little blowhole, which was pretty cool as the water rushed up a few feet through the little hole, but we were expecting a much better show from the bigger blowhole.  Unfortunately, the rest of that evening and the morning in Kiama proved to be quite calm on the ocean, so we did not see many explosions of water.  Despite pamphlets boasting that the spray can reach up to 30.5 meters in the air, this is a picture of one of the very few explosions we got:

We can only imagine how high the water can get in stormy ocean conditions.

We parked and checked into the hotel.  As soon as we arrived, we heard some cheering and yelling from one of the two rugby pitches next to the hotel, so dad was able to catch the last 10 minutes of a league game.  He noted that the positioning of the field was very close to the edge of the water; if a player was to kick the ball too far into touch, the ball would head down the cliff to the ocean.  We ate some great Vietnamese food at the recommendation of the hotel owner.

Day Seven: Katoomba

The next morning, the three of us woke up to see the sunrise over the ocean from the Kiama Blowhole point.  We were also hoping that the sea would be more choppy to make bigger splashes through the hole, but no such luck.  On the positive side, we spotted a couple more whales.  We also took several pictures of the pelicans in the bay before going to breakfast at a little cafe called Peckish.  We had a very nice breakfast there then headed on the long drive to the Blue Mountains.  The first stop of the day was at the Robertson Pie Shop.  Australians love their meat pies.  We decided to head to Robertson because it was a 'world famous' shop.

This is also a picture of our car for the week and a bit.  It had a license plate from Queensland not New South Wales.

And the pies there were very good.  We tried one there, and took two to eat later.  We tried a standard meat one, a beef with mushroom and red wine, and a chicken and Camembert.  As it turned out we didn't have the take-away pies until  much later, after dad left, because we did not have any way to heat up the pies.  But, mom and I enjoyed them when we moved into my room with a microwave (sorry dad, they were so tasty!).  We took the back-roads, which quite literally wound its way up the hills.  We had a bit of a scare behind an RV that seemed to be having a lot of trouble getting up the steep road we were on.  But it made it and we gave him a lot of space.  Then when we got up this particular hill, we stopped at the Jamberoo lookout.

Those pictures really speak to the gorgeous countryside that we passed through.  We continued on our way and after a failed attempted at seeing the Carrington Falls, which ended up being closed due to some fire damage to the area, we came across a little gold nugget of a stop, called the Fitzroy Falls.  We impulsively decided to take the turn off for Fitzroy Falls, which turned out to be better than what we anticipated.  There was a visitor centre with information about the flora and fauna of the area and several paths to hike around the area.  We did a small hike of about 1.5 km to three different lookouts.  The area was very beautiful and the Falls themselves were much bigger than I thought they would be.  Overall, the stop was a pleasant surprise, with the exception of the smell around the visitor centre as there was work being done on the septic system.  But, I don't want to leave you with that image, so quickly turn your attention to the Falls:

Fitzroy Falls

And here is a picture of us at the lookout:

Dad is not keen on heights, but that never stopped him from taking in the sights at all of the lookouts at which we stopped.

We ate lunch at a small cafe in the Goulburn Shopping Centre.  We also picked up some nice breads and scones for breakfast from a bakery in the mall, as well as some drinks from Liquorland.  We bought a pretty looking box of wine, otherwise known in Australia as a 'Goon'.  We just wanted to fit in; plus it was the equivalent of two and a half bottles of wine for $10.  Initially we had planned to go to the Jenolan Caves.  However, we did not think that we would make it to them before they closed.  Instead, we took a scenic route and drove on to Katoomba.  We drove through a handful of tiny towns that passed in the blink of an eye.  In true road trip fashion, we stopped on the side of the road for a pee break in the bush.  We also stopped to take more pictures of kangaroos. (FYI- these were two different stops.)  We made it to Katoomba in the darkness that is 6pm in winter and went to dinner at the Rosewood Cottage Grill next to the hotel for dinner.  The food was quite good, and at a reasonable price; but the table was like a sauna in front of the heater.

Day Eight: Cessnock

We spent the majority of the day in Katoomba at Scenic World.  Scenic World is an attraction which includes three scenic railways/cableways and a little hiking area in the valley.   We started on the first cableway which took us on a short ride across the top of the valley.  It gave us a good view of the Katoomba Falls and also had a glass floor to look down at the forest below.  On the other side we checked out the lookouts and also had a quick visit to the Katoomba Cascades.

We took the same cableway back across then took a very steep railway that does not feel at all safe.  It was more or less a roller coaster as the decline was at 52 degrees.  This was the original line that miners used in the area, and the pictures of and the original rail car were terrifying to look at, let alone think about the miners who actually used them on a regular basis.

The seats also had the option of changing the degree to which they were angled.  We chose the same as the original line: 52 degrees, but there were also the 'laidback' and 'cliffhanger' angles which were plus/minus 12 degrees.

That is the railway

It could have been called an elevator with seats.  It felt like I was completely perpendicular to the ground. It is hard to show how steep it was in a picture.

We did a little hike in the valley at the bottom, which passed by the coal mines and some very large trees.  We saw some nice birds and there were labels on the types of trees there, but I cannot remember them for the life of me.  After our hike, we took the third and final cableway, which was a large gondola for about 75 people, taking us up to the top of the mountain again.  We had a great view of the Three Sisters and the Blue Mountains landscape.  Once to the top, we drove to the Waradah Aboriginal Centre to watch a dance performance, traditional stories, and an explanation of the didgeridoo.  There was a bit of a wait before the show started, so we ate some lunch.  Then we headed to the show.  When it started, we were the only three people in the audience, but a large tourist group came in late.  It was an excellent show, both entertaining and educational.  After the show and a poke around the gift shop, we went to Echo Point lookout for a better view of the Three Sisters.

It was a very very windy day.

We drove on to Cessnock, through the Hunter Valley area, where we stayed overnight at a brewery/resort.  We had dinner at the Potter's Brasserie.  Dad and I had a beer tasting board of the brews made on site (Hunter Beer Co.), and all of our meals were really tasty.  But, both mom and dad were fascinated with this table made of one long piece of monkey wood in one of the rooms. 

Day Nine: Port Stephens

We changed our plans for the day in the morning over our hotel room breakfast and decided to skip hanging out in the hunter valley and wine tasting.  Instead, we made our way straight to Port Stephens, which was only about an hour drive, and made potential koala sightings a priority.  We went to the Tilligerry Habitat for a walkabout. We got very excited heading in to the area because it is supposed to have a higher concentration of koalas.  We saw so many koala-crossing signs and stopped in to the visitor centre to find out what we were looking for on our walk.  We kept our eyes up to the trees, but unfortunately did not see any koalas.  They are evidently very hard to spot because they are usually sleeping in a little grey ball and it is next to impossible to check every tree.  It was a nice walk anyway because we were by the beach and the water was very blue.  We ate a tapas lunch at Poyer's by the marina in Tilligerry. Then went on another small walk to look for koalas on the Tilligerry Creek Koala Walk.  Yet again, no luck.  

               

             

We dropped off our bags at our little apartment for the night at Marty's at Little Beach.  Then we wandered the coast from Little Beach to Nelson Bay.  We checked out a shops in the small town and had happy-hour beers from Hope Brewhouse, which brews nearby in the Hunter Valley.   On our walk back to Little Beach, we witnessed what I would deem the most beautiful sunset of the road trip (but not to compete with the sunrise that dad saw).

Following the sunset, we ate dinner at the the Little Beach Boathouse for one of the best meals of the trip.  I had the market fish of the day, which was swordfish, dad had scallops, and mom had mussels. Everything was so flavourful and really indescribable.  It also seemed like a special night so we had the dessert trio as well, which was a sticky date pudding, a white chocolate and peach tart, and a dark chocolate mousse with ice cream.  Can I just say YUM!

Day Ten: Sydney

We were thrown a bit of a curve ball in the morning because the whale watching tour we had booked was cancelled due to poor sea conditions.  One of the first things we thought of was that this day would have been great to see the Kiama Blowhole.  We were disappointed, of course, but we did feel better having seen the whales in Green Cape.  So we started the day with a hike to the summit of Tomaree Head.  

This was the view from the summit.

Because we didn't have the whale watching tour taking up half of our day, we were able to take our time driving back to Sydney.  We stopped at several beaches and took the coastal roads, as opposed to the motorways.  We at breakfast at a place on Birubi Beach called Crest.  This was yet another highlight of the trip, we had delicious and big breakfasts, watching camels stroll along the beach.  Yes, you read that right, there were camels on the beach to take tours of the huge sand dunes in the area.  Birubi Beach was a very long beach and the waves were quite big.  Take a look:

The black spot in the middle = my 6"3 father

Me = not 6"3 (please also ignore the birds nest of hair on my head, it was super windy)

Dunes or desert? You decide.

We kept driving down the coast and stopped at a town called The Entrance. You may have heard of it before; it is the pelican capital of Australia after all. There definitely were a lot of pelicans there, and everyday at 3:30pm there is a pelican feeding on the harbour.  We did not stick around to see it though.  We kept going to Sydney.  Eventually we ended up on the motorway and made a point of crossing over Harbour Bridge, just to say we did.  Proof:

We made it to our hotel in the Potts Point area and walked down the street to a very hip joint called the Butler for dinner.  Not only were the food and drinks tasty, but the restaurant also had a spectacular view of the Sydney skyline. After we ate, we had a bit of a wander down the road to see more of that skyline before heading back to the hotel.

Day Eleven: Sydney

This was a day of museums for dad's last day in Sydney.  We walked through Woolloomooloo (I only added that detail because I like the name) and through the Royal Botanic Gardens on our way to our first museum.  It was bright sunny day and we had great views of the Harbour. 

Side note: we unwittingly matched outfits as we all chose purple shirts

First we saw the Museum of Sydney, which explained the history of how Sydney was settled with the eleven convict ships, then how it developed over time.  We also saw an interesting film about the construction of Harbour Bridge.  Next we ate at the Orient Hotel, which is one of the oldest pubs in Sydney.  It has been open since 1844!  Next door was the Rocks Discovery Museum, which also went through the history of Sydney and Australia in general.  This was an excellent little museum.  We walked from there to Darling Harbour to the Australian Maritime Museum.  This was a big museum about everything to do with people's history on the sea, including the navy, migrants who came by boat, aboriginal peoples boats, pearl mining, submarines, and the list goes on.  Plus there were several ships to see on the docks behind the museum.  

Needless to say, we were exhausted at the end of the day.  We had a full day of walking and our brains were overloaded with information.  Interestingly enough, the three of us each learned something different at the museums we went to.  It was good to compare notes after the fact.  We grabbed some gelato and headed back to the hotel.  We just ate dinner in the hotel restaurant and spent the night in, watching a rugby game and playing cards.

Dad left early the next morning.  It was sad to watch him go and for our road trip to come to an end.  But, we saw some pretty spectacular things, ate unbelievably good food, and made great memories. Mom got to spend an extra week with me after that, which I will report about soon!  For now here is a bonus picture of dad and I: