Royal National Park and Bondi Beach

Our next stop was Royal National Park. It was just a couple hours drive to the cliff hike at the southern end of the park. There were some beautiful views along the hike and the girls (as usual) were super hikers!

Trying to scale the fence...we caught them just in time!

The coastline south of Sydney was beautiful!

...and so are these lovely ladies!


The girls found this natural swing along the trail that served as a diversion for a few minutes.


Our next stop in the park was at Jibbon Beach, which we re-named squeaky beach! The sand made this really neat squeaking sound when you walked on it.

We walked the length of the beach to see the aboriginal rock engravings near Bundeena. They were very difficult to find, but finally, we managed.




Danielle had found an African dance class to take at Bondi Beach in Sydney. So we headed north...

Getting to Bondi Beach was not too difficult even without a great road map of Sydney (I'm not sure if they make a great road map of Sydney, but we sure could not find one...). We found some delicious Thai take-out and hung out on the beach, paid a ridiculous amount of money to park, and found Danielle's dance class.



While she took class, the girls and I had a lot of fun at the playground that is adjacent to the beach.




Later that evening, we found a real gem of a campground at Lanes Cove National Park, just north of the city. More about that in the next post.

Fitzroy Falls

After a couple of hikes at Jervis Bay, we hopped in the car for what we were expecting to be an hour long drive to Fitzroy Fall visitor center. Well...we got a little off track and explored some of the steepest, narrowest most winding roads yet!

Once we were back on track, we got to cross this pretty cool bridge.

Then we found our way to the Fitzroy Fall visitor center. It had some nice exhibits and the woman (Beth) that ran it showed us a great video about how kangaroos are born and how the mothers care for their joeys.

We really got a kick out of this sign outside of the restrooms at the visitor center.


Looking down from the top of Fitzroy Falls.


The view of the valley downstream of the falls.


Looking back at the falls from further along the trail.


She also let us know about a very nice (free!) campground not far from there.

Is anyone sick of the campervan yet?!?

The next morning, we stopped to see some more falls and headed for Royal National Park.

Gabbi and Jacqui...which way to the falls?


The view of the waterfall just a bit down the road from our campsite.

Kangaroo Video

I had trouble getting this video to work on the last post, so here it is!

Bateman's Bay and Jervis Bay

Bateman's Bay.

We left the Snowy Mountains and headed for the coast. The drive was (once again) winding roads up and down through the mountains.

After about a 5 hour drive, we found the dirt road that led to Pebbly Beach. It was an unbelievably washboarded road that forced us to crawl or have our fillings shaken out. When we reached the beach, we spent some time eating a late lunch and exploring the tide pools.

The tidepools were filled with shells and limpets.







Danielle went to check out the campground. We were trying to decide whether we wanted to stay there or venture another hour (or so) north to Jervis Bay. Gabbi, Jacqui, and I walked the beach a bit and the girls noticed a mob of kangaroos emerging from the woods. Of course, they wanted to go and pet them! I warned them that it was unlikely that these 'roos would be as friendly as our previous campground visitors and that they would probably hop away if they got too close.



I was wrong.




There were a lot of rainbow lorikeets flying around here.

The goannas were very cool looking (and kind of intimidating).


After watching the kangaroos, goannas, and birds, we decided to head north, hit a grocery store, and find the "Green Patch" campground that had been recommended to us by some folks that we met at Kosciusko. The ride ended up taking about an hour and a half (plus the stop for groceries), so it was well after dark when we arrived. After a quick supper, we were ready to hit the sack.

The next morning, we got up and had a nice pancake breakfast. After stowing our gear and our beds and making sure nothing would fall off of the countertops... we headed to our first hike of the day.



We did a nice hike along the shoreline that wrapped back inland and joined a nature trail.

There were quite a few of these crimson rosellas along the start of the trail.

The moon was still out as we started the hike.


Jacqui was convinced that one of these rosellas would hop onto her arm!


You can pretty much count on finding a balance beam on any hike (anywhere).

We caught a glimpse of this swamp wallaby.


A very cool hollowed out tree.

This natural arch was a fun exploring and climbing spot.


Toward the end of the hike, we came across this snake. It's hard to tell the perspective (no one would go stand next to it...), but I'd say it was about 6 feet long. I was surprised at the light color (we all remembered it being very dark, before we saw the pictures).


Luckily, it did not block our way for very long.

For lunch, we headed to the Botanical Garden and explored for an hour or so before heading to Fitzroy Falls.

The mud along the shoreline of this lake was extremely sticky and tried to steal the girls shoes!



The first kookaburra of the trip!

Mount Kosciusko (The Snowy Mountains)

It was about an 8 hour drive from the Jenolan Caves to where we had reservations at a campsite at Kosciusko Mountain Retreat. The kids did great on the ride. The campervan setup was such that they sat about 12 feet away from us at the back of the van with a half wall in between us. It was difficult to talk with them, so at some points Danielle would crawl back and read to them or work on math.

When we arrived at the campsite, we were greeted by a group of kangaroos! When we opened the doors to the van, they quickly hopped up to see if we had anything to eat. Needless to say, this kind of caught us by surprise.. Gabbi and Jacqui really enjoyed the chance to pet the kangaroos, along with a brush tailed possum that was hanging out near the kitchen one evening.

We saw this older joey nursing as we pulled into the site.


Our first kangaroo visitor to the campervan. We had expected them to be quite a bit bigger and apparently as you get into the outback they can get larger (especially the red kangaroos). All of the kangaroos that we saw in the wild were Eastern grey kangaroos.


Looking out the campervan door at our new friend.

We did a couple of nice hikes. The Rainbow Lake Trail was near Snowy River (the site of the book and movie) and was a nice afternoon hike to a beautiful lake.

Getting ready to start the Rainbow Lake hike.


The girls spotted these larva on a leaf along the trail. After this we spotted a lot more as we went along.

Gum trees along the hike to Rainbow Lake.

We were able to explore the shoreline a bit before a rain shower moved in.


There was the remains of an old dock along one part of the shore.

We hiked Mount Kosciusko, which is the highest mountain in Australia at 2228 metres (7310 ft) above sea level. The route we chose went from Charlotte's Pass to the summit and was 18 km (about 11 miles!) round trip. It was really cold and windy!! We all bundled up in the warmest clothes that we brought. Luckily, we had anticipated lower temperatures in this area. The night before the hike was also the coldest night of the trip. We talked to some folks near the summit that had come up the other side (there was a chair lift option to get you most of the way up). They told us that the thermometers read zero Celsius at the top of the lift! Luckily there was a hut part way along the trail, so we ducked in for a little shelter and lunch!
The view as we started our hike.

Bundled up and ready to hike!

At the headwaters of the Snowy River, the girls still had plenty of energy!


The sun was shining for the morning and most of our ascent.

By the time we reached the top, the clouds had really rolled in.

The hike down was pretty cold.


We shared hats and sunglasses all around.


We made it. Pooped out. I was so impressed with the girls! Congratulations on accomplishing a heck of a hike!

This brush-tailed possum was quite friendly (obviously hoping for scraps...)

Next stop, the coast...