Our Travels

The weather has improved slightly with only occasional showers. Today was our Sydney ferry day. We caught the train in the Blue Mountains and headed down to Parramatta to catch the river ferry to Circular Quay. With all the rain the water was rushing over the weir and there was evidence that the ferry terminal had been under water overnight. Buses were provided to take passengers downstream to the next ferry stop.

Parramatta Weir

The river ferry is a certainly a relaxing way to go into the city, you get to see many of the larger houses and a lot of the old industry and naval installations that used to be along the Parramatta river.

Parramatta RiverCat

The funniest thing was the ferry having to turn around to pick up some passengers. There were a number of stops where no people were waiting and the captain just slowing cruised past without stopping. At one particular stop there were several people standing towards the back of the jetty and as the ferry approached they made no move towards the front of the jetty so the captain slowly cruises in, still no movement so he guns the motors and heads back out into the river and you should have seen the frantic waving then. There were a number of choice words heard from the wheelhouse as the captain turned the ferry around and went back for them. The second last stop was at Darling Harbour and then under the Sydney Harbour bridge into Circular Quay.

Sydney Opera House

The next ferry was to Watsons Bay where the famous Doyle’s Fish restaurant is. This ferry crosses Sydney harbour pass the Garden Island naval base. We had lunch at the takeaway part of Doyle’s but they provide a covered area with a wood fire so it was quite a pleasant spot of lunch on a cold miserable Sydney day. We had an hour and a half at Watson’s Bay and it’s only a short walk to the ocean and the Gap, the rain had stopped so we enjoyed a walk to see the waves crashing into the infamous Gap. Then it was back on the ferry to Circular Quay for our next trip.

Manly Ferry

The ferry to Manly is a much bigger boat than the other Sydney ferries and this is because it crosses the gap between North and South Heads where it is open to the ocean swells. Today there was a good swell running so it as quite spectacular to watch the front end of the ferry disappear under water as it met the large swells.

Manly Ferry Crossing the Heads

We walked through Manly to the beach and had afternoon tea watching the surfers enjoying the large swells coming in. We had to pose for a photo outside of the Humphreys Newsagent, and then it was back on to the ferry for the ride back to Sydney.

It was dark by the time we were back at Circular Quay. From Circular Quay it was a train ride to Central Station then a dash across 10 platforms to catch the Blue Mountains train about a minute before it left.

The rain continues! It didn’t stop last night and it looks like it’s not going to stop today. We felt like having a day indoors but Alan had taken two days off work and was pretty keen to show us around the Blue Mountains. It took a while to get us moving but we finally got in the car using the umbrellas and headed off to see what we could of the Blue Mountains. First stop was the Leura Cascades and with the overnight rain they were in full flow. There is a very nice picnic area there but with the rain it certainly was not a picnic day. From there we drove around Cliff Drive which surprisingly is along the cliff edge around to the Three Sisters lookout at Katoomba. It was pretty cloudy so the views were not that great nevertheless there were plenty of tourists there with their umbrellas and ponchos. It was hard to hear a word of English spoken there.

Next we headed south to the Jenolan Caves, at least you can keep dry inside a cave. We arrived just as the cafeteria was closing but managed to get a roast beef roll that wasn’t too bad. We booked a tour for the Imperial and Diamond caves and while we waited had a look around the open formations called the Devils Coach house and the Grand Arch. The caves here were formed by the underground rivers. Water seeped down cracks in the limestone and formed chambers below the riverbed. Over time parts of the riverbed collapsed and the river moved to a lower level. According to the guide there are currently three distinct levels in the cave systems.

Jenolan Caves

The deeper sections of the cave where there is little air movement held the more spectacular formations.

We went to a home church with Delcie and Alan this morning. The hosts were Tim and Bronwyn and they had recently completed their new house in Springwood after living in a small studio on the rear of the block for several years.

After church we went to a couple of lookouts and travelled through some of the areas that were burnt in the 2013 bushfires. Over 200 homes were lost in the Blue Mountains, many are now just being rebuilt. From there we went down to Richmond for lunch, then over to Penrith where we dropped the girls off at a craft store and went looking for a replacement snorkel head but it was a bit of a lost cause on a Sunday.

Packing up again and today we are heading to the Watagans National Park. We stopped at a small town called Stroud for lunch and checked the forecast. My sister had called earlier to see when we would be in Sydney and the plan was for two nights at the Watagans then arrive on Monday, she told us that Sydney was expecting heavy rain over the next two days. As we finished lunch it started to rain and we weighed up whether to camp in the bush for two nights in the rain or push on to the Blue Mountains. We calculated that by taking the motorways we should arrive in the Blue Mountains around 5 pm. Jacky was very much in favour of pushing on to the Blue Mountains and the prospect of attempting to set the camper up at Delcie and Alan’s to dry with their limited yard space wasn’t encouraging so we headed for the Blue Mountains

We made some curried egg sandwiches and headed up the mountain to the lookout and Gloucester Falls, it was about 20kms up a steep narrow gravel road. The walk to the falls was about 2 kms return but wasn’t too steep and most of the track was well made. The view of the falls wasn’t that spectacular from the lookout and the track down to the bottom was closed. Against Jacky’s advice I decided to see how far it went down. It turned out that you could get quite close to the falls before the track was torn away where a large tree had fallen over. I took a few photos of the falls and we headed back to the car park for lunch.

Gloucester River Falls

After lunch we headed back to camp, I checked out a few side tracks but they didn’t go very far. It appears that the Barrington / Gloucester Tops area is a large wilderness area with only limited vehicle access at multiple points around the edges and only walking tracks that go across the national park.

Currawong, Gloucester Tops

Back at camp we spent the rest of the afternoon watching the variety of wildlife

Lyre Bird

We had a lyrebird cross the camping area, photo opportunities were limited but we got to hear his vast array of calls. The wrens, robins and kookaburras just walked all around the camp coming up quite close to our tents to get crumbs and pieces of apple.

Eastern Crimson Rosella

As it got dark a couple of brush tail possums came to investigate our camp, but when they decided to climb on the tent I decide enough was enough and took the broom to them.

Today we are heading for Barrington Tops National park, actually it turned out that we were in the Gloucester Tops just past the town of Gloucester.

Packing the car up today I noticed that the snorkel top was missing off the 4WD, when I suggested we could leave via the fire trail and maybe find the snorkel top, Jacky was not impressed so we decided to write it off.

We managed to get the chainsaw sorted out in Gloucester but were unable to find a snorkel top. The road into the Gloucester Creek campgrounds was a narrow gravel road that wound through numerous farms and over quite a few creek crossings. There was about 30 cms of water over most of the crossings but it was quite obvious that it would not take too much of a downpour to isolate many of these properties. The campground was a beautiful bush setting near the Gloucester River. The wildlife was very friendly, the Crimson Rosellas tried to land on Jacky’s head as we set up camp, the kookaburras watched us intently, the fairy wrens walk in and around our table under the canopy and we had a possum crawling over our tent that night.

Welcoming Committee at Gloucester Tops Campgrounds

Blue Fairy Wren at Gloucester Tops

Today we drove through some narrow and steep forest roads to a little town called Comboyne. I was a little low on fuel so we thought we could fill up and get some lunch. Not likely, the last time the fuel bowsers had been used looked like about 30 years ago and lunch wasn’t an option either. They recommended we drive to Wingham. Wingham is a much larger country town and we enjoyed a $18 scotch fillet steak and trimmings for lunch at the local services club. After a look around town we headed back to camp from a completely different direction and put our faith in the GPS. The first attempt ended in a closed road, the bridge had been washed away many years ago and never replaced. In the next attempt we headed towards the small town of Lansdowne, then through many small farming communities to another road that was clearly marked no through road. I decided to take a risk and have a look, about halfway down we came across a forest track called Green Hwy which we had seen earlier in the day as we drove out to Comboyne. My faith in the GPS was somewhat restored. We travelled along this road for about 10 kms then the GPS directed on to Pimlik trail which was basically a fire trail. It was a very overgrown track that had not been used in sometime, after about 5 km of pushing through shrub we were debating if we should turn back, but a check on GPS showed we were heading in the right direction so we decided to push on. The options to turn around were very limited. Finally we came to a fairly steep hill and a few more obstacles, the first tree branch Jacky was able to move while I drove around it, the second tree required the axe to cut and move and just as we got near the top there was a tree about 30cm thick, 50 cms off the ground and it extended 4-5 mtrs back in the scrub on both sides of the track. This moment I had purchased the chainsaw for. 20 mins later the tree was in numerous pieces and we were mobile again, another 10 mins we came out onto a forest road that we recognised that went back our camp

At camp I pulled out the chainsaw to cut up some firewood and there was no way I could get it to start. When I had it serviced the technician said that the carburettor was blocked with oil residue from too high oil concentration in the fuel. Apparently when two stroke fuel is left for longer than a month the acetone content in the ULP evaporates leaving too much oil in the fuel. It was very fortunate it clogged up after we cleared the trail.

The juvenile butcher birds were so cheeky they even landed on out table looking for crumbs

Tonight we had the entire camp ground to ourselves.

Camp at Swans Crossing

Its pack up time again and this time, it’s time to head bush again. First we had to pick up a replacement lock for one of the trailer doors at the local Johnno’s agent in Wauchope then it was time to look for lunch. Just out of Wauchope there is a small place called Timbertown.

Waterwheel built by the local craftsmen at Timbertown

It was an old recreated timber village and as we had a little time up our sleave so we decided to pay the entry fee and have a look. The dining hall was an old timber building complete with open wood fire and the Chicken Schnitzel was a generous size and tasted really good.

Bullock Team Demonstration

After lunch we toured the village, watched a bullock driver hitch a team of bullocks to an old log wagon and pull it around the oval. It was quite amazing as he gave commands to individual bullocks at the front or rear to move forward, backwards or turn. We checked out the blacksmith and watched him make a leaf key ring tag from a piece of round steel which he gave to Jacky.

From there were had a ride in the horse carriage followed by the steam train that did a circuit around the property. On the way out Jack had to stop at the craft store where she found a cute knitted outfit for our new granddaughter.

By the time we left it was 4 pm. The GPS suggested that a road just to the west of Timbertown went the back way into the forestry camp where we planned to camp but after leading us down several roads that just led to farm houses with no access to the forest we had to give up and drive back to the highway and enter the campsite through Kendall. It was dark as we started to set up. Swan Crossing was a beautiful large open grassed area campsite with plenty of space and we had to share it with only one other camper.

Today we head off to explore Coffs Harbour. We stopped in town for a few things then headed down to the marina. First we checked the old jetty then drove around to the fishing harbour. Just off the mainland there is an island known for its Mutton bird population in 1912 a breakwater was constructed to connect the island to the mainland to provide more shelter for the harbour. We walked out to the end of the island, it is supposed to be an ideal spot to watch whales migrating up and down the coast but all we saw was a pod of dolphins.

Coffs Harbour

Being a fishing harbour and lunch time we had to try the local fish and chips. From there we headed up to the national park above Coffs to the Forest Sky Pier. The road up to the lookout is quite steep and apparently follows an old logging tramway, what was unusual were the banana plants growing on the very steep hillsides. Some hills were so steep it was hard to imagine how they planted them, let alone maintain the trees and picked the fruit.

Forest sky platform, Coffs Harbour

The view from the sky pier was pretty spectacular, you could see all of the town plus much of the country to the south.

From New England we were heading back to the coast and we wanted to check out Coffs Harbour but we didn’t particularly want to camp at Coffs so I headed for a small holiday town south of Coffs called Urunga. We arrived just after lunch to find there was one site left, even in winter these caravan parks do a roaring trade. This was a particular nice caravan park with excellent facilities. The first task was to catch up with the washing and while that was happening we met out neighbours and had them over for a cup of tea. They were from Lake Macquarie and were heading north for 6 weeks. Steve was a Telstra technician from the days of PMG and was using up his last long service before retiring and his wife Ronda worked in a school. I attempted for a while to direct conversation away from school stories but it didn’t last for long, soon Rhonda and Jacky were swapping school horror stories.