The Central Coast, Barrington Tops and fishing at last

We wanted to continue our journey along the coast road and the circumnavigation of the country. The area we were aiming for looked lovely on the map...two huge lakes with a small entrance into the sea, bays, lighthouses and beaches! The area was called The Entrance, and we drove eagerly looking for an isolated beach for some fishing and beach walking. What a disappointment...the whole area was just an extension of the Sydney sprawl and was built up, expensive, overcrowded and BUSY! The coast was lovely, but after one night we decided to move on to something more peaceful and unpopulated. We moved to a small hamlet on the northern banks of Port Stephens called Hawks Nest. Port Stephens is a huge bay ( twice as big as Sydney Harbour) with two rivers flowing into the bay which then flows out to sea between two large headlands and numerous small islands...very beautiful. The beaches inside the bay are peaceful and turquoise and there are many playful dolphins in the shallows. The open sea side beaches are long stretches of golden sand and huge waves. We stayed on the quiet side of the bay in a small caravan park right on the beach and surrounded by huge trees and national park and it was so peaceful we stayed there a week (also it rained a lot so then we had to stay indoors). The opposite side of the bay are the trendy and busy touristy places like Nelson and the pretty Shoalwater Bay. There are ferries across the bay hourly so we took one to see the other side and then took a bus to the various little bays across the peninsula. The whole area is green and lush and the beaches are crescent bays with picturesque headlands at each end. We were entranced, but have since realized that this is also the case on the whole central and northern coast of NSW, i.e. big rivers flowing into the sea making estuaries, lakes and bays, with lovely beaches. Since the whole area is volcanic and the Great Dividing Range extends to the sea, the surrounding bays are framed by these wonderful green lush mountains. We did a bit of fishing on the river, and walked in the Nat Park where we saw a few wild Dingoes wandering around and many different bird species. There were even some Brush Turkeys in the camp site.
We intended to meander up the coast, but decided to make another detour inland to see an area called Barrington Tops. This is a World Heritage Area which rises to 1600 meters pretty much from sea level. The “tops” are a series of rocky outcrops on the tops of mountains formed by the huge volcanoes which dominated the area millions of years ago and which have now eroded leaving only the lava cores. The valleys and slopes are covered in subtropical and temperate rain forest and have many endangered species of plants and animals. We stayed in the nearest town which was Gloucester, which had the fast flowing Gloucester River flowing through the caravan park. It had been raining on and off for days but on a day that “they” promised would be clear we started driving to the Nat Park 60ks away. The dirt road was terrible, made worse by recent rains..potholed and slippery. Still we slowly (12 kms an hour) pushed on by the promise of views and hikes. The road climbed and climbed, and when we got to the first lookout we hiked to the edge to look at the view and saw.....milky white cloud!! Only tantalising glimpses of the steep gorge through the mist now and again showed us what we were missing. We drove a bit further, but it started to rain heavily, so we drove all the way back slipping and sliding in the mud without even having had the experience! Still the forest had been wonderful, and we did see a glimpse of what we will see next time. It continued raining ( records broken and floods all over the country at this time), and we nervously watched the big river rising nearer the bridge knowing that only a week before it had covered the bridge and the town was cut off. A walk along the river bank had a memorial erected to the “big flood of 1960 which had the town one and half meters under water”..the town was one km away and on a hillside!! We decided to move on back up the coast.....
Next stop was another lovely collection of Hamlets near Port Macquarie where we stayed in Laurieton. Again, it was at the mouth of a large river and the estuaries and lakes made the area perfect for fishing. There was a steep mountain at the edge of the town called North Brother which rose steeply from the bay to 600 meters and had wonderful views of the area..they did hang gliding from the edge! Paul and I did a lot of fishing in this area as it was so peaceful sitting on the lakes edge watching the sun go down, the pelicans cruising around us, and the bird life. I am getting quite good at casting, baiting, and even rigging the rod..still have nothing edible to prove it though. Caught a lot of Bream but the legal size for them is 30 cms. Paul caught a large long fish with a long beak and nasty teeth..we think it was a type of Barracuda called a Long Tom. We did a trip into Port Macquarie and saw the scenic little bay towns along the way like Bonnie Hills. Lots of rain..but when the sun did come out it was humid. A sure sign that we were heading closer to Queensland and the tropics!
PHOTOS: View of the beach at Shoalwater bay showing the headlands
Paul holding up a Beach Worm we found on the beach being attacked by a crab (normally they are hard to find) ...they grow larger than this one and the fish love them for bait. This beach we found in a Nat Park was about 4 kms of perfect flat white sand....and we were the ONLY people on the whole beach!!
Colleen looking over the lookout in Barrington Tops trying to see the view of the gorge through the mist.
Paul holding up the pine cone of the Bunya Pine tree which is native to the East Coast. The Pine grows to about 45 meters and the cones can weigh up to 10 kg. The kernels which are found in the ripe cone are as big as plums. One has to be careful sitting under these trees as they are quite prolific!

Beautiful Blue Mountains

On the doorstep of Sydney, about 70 kms west, is the World Heritage Listed Blue Mountains...much of it an impenetrable forest wilderness region. This unique and beautiful region is over a million hectares, much of it so remote and inaccessible that it has never been walked in by humans. The landscape is inconceivably ancient. When the Grand Canyon was still a shallow creek, these cliffs and chasms looked much as they do today. It is a high plateau which has been carved into deep canyons, sheer cliff faces, and huge gorges with waterfalls cascading down their sides, caves and underground rivers. I could not believe that this remote wilderness was on the doorstep of a city of 4 million people!
As we stood on the edge we were struck, like everyone else, by the bluest sort of mist shrouding the mountains, giving them an azure look. Of course it IS a sort of mist because the millions of Blue Gums exude a sort of oil which refracts the light and gives the area its blue haze...gorgeous. As we sat gazing at the view from one of the many lookouts atop a sheer cliff face of over 350 meters, over a valley stretching for miles into the distance, we felt awed and stunned. A few tourists would wander over, and be silent; then after moments of just looking we would hear them say softly,” Wow!”
We have had many “wow” days since the beginning of the trip, but this region was full of “WOW” days! Each day we would head off to see a different part, thinking we could not possibly see anything better, and each day we would come home impressed. We stayed in a little town called Lithgow on the edge of the mountains because it was smaller and cheaper, and had fewer crowds. Only thing was that it was next to the main Rail line from east to west (i.e. Sydney to Perth) and so trains rattled through at all hours..but after a few days we hardly noticed them. We saw a movie on a Giant Screen ( 3 stories high) called “The Edge” all about the Blue Mountains and it was spectacular and well worth it...scenes of the gorges being taken from a helicopter flying dizzyingly over and around the bends. Another day we went to Katoomba which is where the most spectacular Valley has lookouts and cliff walks right around the ridge, including the famous view of the “3 Sisters”. Here also is the “Disneyworld” part of the mountains ..Scenic World. There was a steep cable car ride into the valley floor where they had made a lovely interpretive walkway meandering through the forest of ferns and towering trees. There was also a “skywalk”...a sort of cable car strung between the two cliff faces which goes over the valley floor and right over a waterfall tumbling way down below...all looked at through the open side windows or a Glass Bottomed Floor! Not for those with vertigo! There was also the steepest railway 52 degrees in the world...an old mining rail which they used to haul coal out of the valley 150 yrs ago and which is now used to scare the pants off tourists as it plunges down the gorge though a part through a tunnel to the bottom. Expensive and touristy, but well worth it.
Other days we drove to scenic lookouts, down valleys, and did amazing walks along the edge of the chasms, marvelling at the view at each different place. The region is dotted with small historic towns dating back to pioneer days with convict built buildings, old English gardens, and grand Victorian hotels. We also went to the peak at which the original pioneer, Cox, found his way through the range and opened the route to the West and new farm lands for the colony. We marvelled at how they brought carriages up these slopes, dragging concrete blocks behind them to slow them down on the slopes on the way down, and seeing the marks the convicts made with their picks while hacking through the rocks to make gateways.
Another day we drove into the Wollemi Wilderness part of the mountains which is the most remote and inaccessible (in fact we could not get very far into it ourselves). It was in this part that an adventurer made the most remarkable discovery in 1994..he found a stand of “Dinosaur Trees” which until that moment was thought to have been extinct for more than 6 million years. Discovering them was as likely as finding a dinosaur wandering through the forest in Botanic terms. They are now known as the Wollemi Pines, huge trees of 40 meters tall, and only about 40 in the known universe. Its exact situation is a closely kept secret but who knows what other rare and unknown creatures and plants exist, as it is largely unexplored.
On another day we went for a ride on the ZigZag railway...an engineering wonder of its time. Trying to get coal and goods down the precipice, an engineer designed this railway to go down the gorge in slopes and then reverse the engine and take it down the next slope to the bottom..incredible when you ride on it and see the bridges and tunnels which were build using the most primitive tools.
There was so much to see and do that we were there for 10 days..our record. One of those days was to fix the car which had a few problems, and there were a couple of rainy, misty days too which were well used to do admin, painting and repairs.We left the Blue Mountains reluctantly, and drove through some scary mountain passes in heavy rain and mist..in some places with tyres briefly spun on the steep road, many 180 degree bends. We also took a “short cut” (it wasn’t!) through the mountains and Hawkesbury River valley with 180 degree switchback twisty corners and two ferries (max veh length 7.5 metres permitted) across swollen rivers...all in the rain and mist. Someone had suggested the route as beautiful, which it was, without mentioning that no one should ever take a caravan there. The sad thing was that we couldn’t SEE the beauty either with the mist! On to the next region which is the Central Coast of NSW!!