Our 'killing time' trip turned out to be a little gem, we went south to a lovely coastal spot called Kiami with white sands and crashing waves. Its claim to fame is a blowhole where the sea comes crashing through a tunnel in the rocks causing spray to jet into the air.
Highlights were seven mile beach, nurse sharks in a protected bay where the rocks were black and yellow and massive pelicans perched on top of streetlights as if they were sparrows!
We've discovered on our travels that Aussies don't eat late and take-aways and restaurants close quite early. Somehow we'd forgotten that, and as the pizza place was the only one open, it was pizza on Wednesday night followed by pizza on Thursday. Oh well, such is life. The manager of the motel was a little full of himself - you know the type, he told us how good he was at his job, how much his new car cost, where he was going on holiday, how he never gets any complaints. We couldn't get away from him. However, when we eventually walked into our room unfortunately it hadn't been serviced! He looked slightly sheepish then when he had to knock and deliver towels, crockery, etc! We had a little giggle at his expense. Friday saw us driving further south to Booderee National Park which is jointly owned with the state park authority but Aborigine managed, you pay $10 to go into the park and are given a 24 hour pass. There is an Aborigine township and Jervis Bay which sells itself on having the whitest sand in the world. Not sure about that, white sand is white sand...
We ventured into the Australian National Botanic Gardens which are lovely but slightly ... brown! Apart from the ubiquitous massive blue and white agapanthus which grows like weeds everywhere, there are not many brightly coloured plants. However there was an area of tropical rainforest and, there, curled up on a log was a python. Nice!!
Driving further south it all becomes a bit Skeggy, you know holiday camps, water parks and loads of kids. We've managed to avoid children thus far, except from at a distance, so decided to leave the coast and head for the southern highlands to enjoy a wee drop of Scottish hospitality. We found a lovely little apartment to stay in at Bundanoon attached to a house called Glow Worm Retreat! The owners, John and Rosemary, were fab, we were invited for dinner and shared a barbie with them. You can never have enough steak! Or sausages! Or wine! The next day we had a look at Fitzroy Falls, a long walk, uphill, eventually took us to the west rim of an enormous valley. The falls dropped over several different escarpments which became clear as you walked further round the rim.
Gorgeous. That night Jim decided to walk into the woods at the end of the garden which took him to a gully, to see the glow-worms. I was watching tennis on telly and couldn't be bothered. John had told us there were loads of wombats living down the side of the path. They make huge burrows. He had been gone, with his torch, for about 30 minutes when he appeared at the door panting and looking as if he had run a marathon. 'What's up, is something chasing you?' I asked, very concerned. (Ha-ha) 'No,' he replied, nonchalantly, looking behind him. He obviously wasn't keen on being in the woods on his own in the dark, imagining he was being chased by rabid wombats!!
We said bye bye to Dippy on Sunday, after 10 weeks, and settled into the Holiday Inn at Sydney airport. More tennis then.
Bye Sydney, bye Australia.
A 3 hour flight, non-eventful apart from being in cattle class on Quantas' budget partner, JetConnect, a 20 minute bus trip and a 10 minute walk to the hotel, put watches on 2 more hours and off we went to explore Auckland. We're now 13 hours in front of the UK. The sun was shining, it was a beautiful evening and we stumbled on a great Mexican restaurant, bliss - a change of diet!
Tomorrow we begin our New Zealand adventure.
(This blog will be published as soon as we can get wi-fi access, don't know when that'll be though)
- Posted by Annie & Jim using BlogPress from THE iPad
Location:Auckland, New Zealand
No comments:
Post a Comment