It is Sunday already and we will be heading off tomorrow to Glen Innes.
When we left Tamworth we decided to take the route through Port Macquarie. That was probably decided for us as the road out of Armidale towards Coffs Harbour had been closed due to black ice. The route was up over the Great Dividing Range but, according to the map, was the easiest route. It was extremely hilly and very windy with the jeep being in 2nd gear most of the time.
We stopped at a small café probably 3/4 of the way through as we needed a break, and a nature photograph hit. The owner told us that we hadn't seen any bends yet as the next 20 kilometres had over 340 bends of 25kph to 45kph severity. How great is that. Something to look forward to. Deb totally wore out the brakes on her side of the car during that part of the trip.
We settled into the Clog Barn Caravan Park and had a well deserved rest. They have this great miniature dutch inspired village here that is a tourist attraction in its own right. The models are really well made, with the windmills, trains and raised bridges all in full working order. How great is the weather up here. The temperature has been at least 20C every day that we have been here.
We caught up with some friends the next day at the local Coffee Club and basically just enjoyed the weather. Since then we went for a drive up to a place called Dorrigo. This is at the top of the Great Diving Range and it was the route that we originally planned to take. I am so glad that we didn't go that way. The bends are just as severe as the others, but the road is very narrow. We followed a truck along the road and it had the drivers side tyres on the double lines and the near side tyres on the rough shoulders edge.
Just through Dorrigo we went and had a look at a lovely little waterfall called Dangar Falls. The well maintained track down to the bottom of the falls wasn't too far so we toughed it out and hiked down to the bottom. Well worth a look.
Then it was off to check out the rainforest centre just through Dorrigo. It had a fairly big visitor centre there with the regulation tourist shop, with a sky walk overlooking the rainforest. Deb got some brochures about other waterfalls and different length of hikes available to the intrepid travellers. Of course I valued her judgement in relation to hikes.
We drove about 1 kilometre to a parking area and it was time for a walk down to the Crystal Falls. The walk through the rainforest was really beautiful, but as you would imagine, it was all down hill. Lucky I had faith in Deb as surely the walk wouldn't be too tough. As we were walking ever downward there were 3 rest bays at equal distance apart, which I saw as a sign that the return journey was going to be such fun.
We finally reached the falls, and yes, they were quite pretty. I even braved the goat track to get into a little cave behind the falls to take a photo through them to Deb up on the bridge. Yes, I know, how brave. (Ever on the lookout for monster spiders of course).
After sucking in the beauty of the falls it was time for the mountain climb back to civilisation. All the time on the walk, you could hear wildlife stalking us through the jungle. Obviously lions or tigers, but we were not deterred in getting you the best story. (ok, they were just scrub turkeys).
It soon became apparent why they had the 3 equal distance apart rest stops. The climb was fairly tough and Deb had a bit of a rest at the 2nd one, and no, we are not there yet. By the time she came to the 3rd seat it was time to have a bit of a nap. She asked when the bus was coming, as she was a bit tired out. You be the judge, but she said that I had more rest stops than her, as I was always stopping and waiting for her to catch up. Not the logic that I am used to........
Anyway, our mountain climb back only took us 25 minutes, with the signpost advising of a 40 minute climb. How fit must that make us. Needless to say a very quiet night was had in the caravan that night.
The next day we were off to check out the Chilli Festival at a little town called Sawtell, 10 k's from Coffs. The place was just packed and parking was at a real premium. We eventually got a park, on our second visit, and the place was just buzzing. There were just so many people there. We had a sample of a few chillis but really nothing screamed out buy me.
We then decided to check out the foreshore, and I am so glad that we did. There were whales about a kilometre off shore. We stayed watching them for about an hour. They were actually breaching and I would think there were probably about 3 or 4 different groups. We saw more whales here today, for free, than we saw on a paid expedition in Eden. I tried to get shots of them with my little camera, which is extremely difficult, as there is a lot of ocean out there and you never know where they will pop up. I was really very happy with the shots that I did get. Maybe not all totally in focus, but you take when you can get. Of course, I had to delete about 50 shots of just the beautiful blue ocean, minus the whales.
Seeing as we had seen these beautiful huge fish today, it was off for fish and chips for dinner. The locals advertise on the tv about the best fish and chip shop ever, down on the marina, so it was off to there for sustenance. You would not believe it, but we got there at 6pm and it was already closed. How backward is that. Maybe they all go to bed early up here and have there dinner at 5pm.
Up bright and early this morning, yeah sure, and off to the Coffs Harbour market. It is a fairly big market with all new stuff on one side of the road, and the trash and treasure type of stuff on the other side. The only purchase we made was of a couple of four bottle, poly styrene, wine racks that we will put under the bed for our extensive wine list. I finally found my perfect weapon as well. If only they would have given me one of them to practice with in my working life.
Caught up on the housework after that and just enjoyed sitting in the sunshine. Yeah, I know, stop rubbing it in.
Our next stop tomorrow is at Glen Innes, which is the celtic capital of Australia. There are also lots of areas there for gemstone fossicking, so we might just get into that on at least one day. That will depend on the weather, as we don't expect the temperatures to be this warm there.
That's all for now.
Barry and Deb.
No comments:
Post a Comment