Australia is a big country – on the map it looks like Sydney and Melbourne are close, but it takes a long time to drive, especially if you take the coast route and keep stopping!
We left the Blue Mountains on Tuesday morning, and headed towards our first stop in Jervis Bay. As seems to happen often on this trip when we have a long drive, the weather was wet for at least the first part of the drive. We made our way to the Royal National Park, bypassing Sydney to the south, and stopped at Audley Weir. We had intended to go to the café here for an early lunch, but parking in the car park found no sign of a café, and had no mobile signal to see if we had missed it. We therefore went for a walk to the lookout – which was only about a mile away but up a lot of steps. The weather had cleared a bit by the time we got to the top, and so we were at least able to see to the lake below, and saw loads of cockatoos flying above the trees in the valley below us. By the time we had got back down, we were quite hungry and so tucked into some of our supplies, so that when we found the café within a couple of minutes of being back on the road, we were not wanting anything else to eat.
We made our way along the coast, with the occasional stop to look at the sea, and went over the Sea Cliff Bridge, a bridge that started running along the side of the cliff and then out into the sea before coming back in land.
One of our earlier thoughts had been to spend a couple of nights at Kiama, before we decided to press on further south to Vincentia. We did, however, stop in Kiama, in particular to see the blowhole. Unlike the blowhole that we had visited in New Zealand, this one was blowing, every few minutes the pressure from the incoming sea was released with a spout of water coming up through the rocks. We were certainly glad that we had stopped in Kiama, but were pleased that we had decided not to stay there for a night or two.
The Airbnb in Vincentia was stunning. We only had access to the upstairs, but it appeared that it had been refurbished very recently, with a very modern kitchen and all the things that we could have needed (perhaps with the exception of a door on the shower!) Jervis Bay is home to around 100 dolphins, and so the following morning we made our way into Huskisson and booked on to a dolphin cruise. There were two boats that went out at about the same time – we went north whilst the other boat went south. After about half an hour, they announced that the other boat had found some dolphins, and that we would therefore go to where they were in the hope of seeing them. By the time we got there, the other boat had left as they had lost the dolphins. We were all scanning the sea in the hope of seeing them, but we had almost given up when one was spotted. Soon, we saw other dolphins, with some swimming right up to the boat and a few porposing where they jumped out of the water. We ended up watching them for nearly half an hour.
After some lunch, we went into Booderee National Park where we hoped to see the dolphins again. The ranger suggested that we should go to Green Patch Beach as this was where we were likely to see kangaroos. We went to the beach, and had a walk, but did not see any kangaroos. We therefore decided to move on to one of the other beaches, and as we walked down to the beach, there were about half a dozen kangaroos just sitting on the grass. They were very happy for people to come up and stroke them, and certainly were not at all frightened of people.
We therefore managed to tick off dolphins and kangaroos in one day.
Our next stop was Naroomba – or rather a little wooden shack about 5 miles outside Naroomba. However, on the way we stopped at Pebbly Beach where we had been told there was a good chance of seeing kangaroos on the beach. On our way down to the beach, we saw a couple of kangaroos on the grass, and thought that would be the best we would get. However, after a bit of a walk, when we were just leaving the beach, there was a group of three on the grass just at the edge of the sand who certainly seemed to like having their photos taken, and then a bigger group just on the way back to the car park.
The shack that we stayed in near Naroomba had one been the main home on a 40 acre estate. However, when the current owners bought the land, they built a new house for themselves and moved the original shack to be used as a holiday home. It was suggested that we could go to the nearby town of Tilba (I cannot remember whether the suggestion was Tilba Tilba or Central Tilba) for a walk up the mountain. However, although it was not raining, there was a lot of mist and it was clear that if we were able to get up to the top of the mountain, we would not be able to see anything from up there. We therefore decided to go for a shorter walk, and then have a look in the shops and cafes of Tilba. We had been told that Tilba was a slightly odd place – where the hippies had gone and got old – even if not grown up. It was certainly an interesting place – with very nice coffee and muffins!
We then made our way back to Naroomba to see the Australia Rock – a rock with a hole with a shape at least generally similar to the outline of Australia. What we had not expected to see was quite so many seals sitting on the wall and playing in the water. It was much closer than we had got to seals before on this trip – and made us want some fish (albeit in batter and with chips).
The place we were staying bordered a creek that led down to a lake. They had canoes available, and so we decided to take a two-person canoe down the creek, dragging it out and over a tree that had come down, and along the rest of the creek and into the lake. To give an idea of how big the lake was, while we were padding away, a float (sea) plane landed on the lake, dropped some people off, and then then took off again. Apart from not falling in, one of the most impressive sights was the number of fish that were leaping out of the water – sometimes making leaps of at least six feet or more. We did not find out what type of fish they were, but we will certainly remember them. There were also loads of shags and heron round the edge of the lake.
Our next stop – just for a night – was in Mallaccota. We were hoping to see koala here, but although the studio that we stayed in had lots of koala stuff – pictures, coasters, ornaments etc., we were not able to see a real koala. Hopefully at out next stop in Raymond Island.
Raymond Island did not disappoint. To get to the island from Paynesville, we had to take a car ferry. We were a little bit worried that we may find that the car ferry was closed or did not have room for us and we would not be able to get across to the island to our house, but there was no issue at all, and we were able to get onto the chain ferry without much of a wait. Raymond Island is known for its koala trail, and so we were expecting to find that there were a lot of day trippers on the island searching for koala when we arrived, but it was remarkably quiet. We found our accommodation without any issue, and went for our first walk to try and spot koala. We were not sure where we would find them (other than up a tree), or quite what we were looking for (other than something small and cuddly), and it did not help that Teresa’s binoculars had broken and so only the right eye could focus. However, we did manage to spot a koala clinging to a tree after less than half an hour – partly helped by seeing some other people looking intently up into a tree. Once we knew what we were looking for, we were able to spot a couple more koala in other trees. However, we clearly managed to walk away from the main koala hotspots, as we did not see any more on the first evening, although did see some kangaroo feasting on someone’s lawn.
The next day was our main koala spotting day, and we went out for different walks three or four times, and each time saw koala sitting in trees, sometimes climbing trees, sometimes eating and in some cases with what were clearly parent and child in the same tree. We also saw a lot of birds, many of which we could not identify (partly because I had forgotten to download the Australia bird pack on my Merlin bird identification app), but did spot quite a few kookaburra and the odd kangaroo. The best sighting of kangaroo came in the evening. On our way back, there were three kangaroo on someone’s front lawn, including a young one. When someone came along walking their dog, the young kangaroo jumped into it’s mother’s ouch, before the kangaroo ran (jumped) away – with the youngster falling out of the pouch in the process!
The one thing that we had hoped to see, but had not managed to, was a koala on the ground. Just as I was packing up the car the final morning, I looked into a low tree on the opposite side of the road, and saw another koala – making its way down the tree. The koala came onto the grass, and then tried to make its way to another tree only to find a fence in the way. Rather than going over the fence, the koala decided to try and go around it. I called Teresa, and we watched for about 5 minutes as the koala went backwards and forwards before deciding that the only option was to go over the fence rather than round it, and then tried going over in three or four different places to get to its new tree which it then climbed up. A perfect finish to our time in Raymond Island before we headed back to the freeway to Melbourne.
